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HOME MISSION 
READINGS 


FOR USE IN 
MISSIONARY MEETINGS 

BY 

ALICE M. GUERNSEY 

AUTHOR OF “UNDER OUR FLAG** 



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New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Re veil Company 

London and Edinburgh 


Copyright, 1905, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 




U3RARY o? O0N{J«Es$ ' 

fwu Oopi«te 

OCT, 16 190$ 

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COPY 3* 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 


CONTENTS 




PAGE 

A Package or Letters 7 

Uncle Sam’s “ How DV Do” 14 

The Immigrant Chapter 19 

With a Nurse Deaconess 21 

Everyday Service 24 

A Deaconess in the Mining Regions 29 

“It Don’t Matter Nothin’” 35 

“Such Stuff as Dreams” 39 

A Personal Investment 44 

Headlines 48 

Their Adopted Member 51 

Girls and Girls 60 

Decoration Day by Proxy 64 

What Was the Use? 71 

Mrs. Winn’s Way 74 

Strategic Points 78 

The Problem of Robert 82 

The Rummage Barrel 84 

A Bundle of Fagots 100 

The Burden of Mendon 105 

From Christmas to Easter 114 


Christmas Gifts for the Christ-Child . . . . 121 



HOME MISSION READINGS 



A PACKAGE OE LETTEKS 

I 

“ 6 And what's a Traveler’s Aid ? ’ 1 can imagine, 
my dear Isabel, the tone of wonder and the half 
curl of your lip as you ask the question. I’ve 
seen and heard you before. Don’t I know that 
you are in a perpetual state of bewilderment over 
my deaconess vocation, half vexed and wholly 
puzzled that I should spend my life in this way? 
All the same, dear, I am expecting you to join 
me. No, don’t protest. Just think about it. 

“ But to your query. Suppose, instead of being 
Miss Lawrence, of Madison Avenue, an up-to- 
date young woman, who thinks nothing of packing 
her trunk for a tour across the continent on an 
hour’s notice, you were a poor sick mother with 
half a dozen babies — I use the words advisedly — 
clinging to your skirts; suppose after two days 
of travel you found yourself in all the noise and 
confusion of this great station, and were bluntly 
told by the gateman — he means all right, but 
he hasn’t time to e bother/ and he’s a man — that 


8 


A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 


your train didn’t go till midnight; suppose the 
children were dusty, yes, dirty, and tired, and 
hungry, and that you had exactly fifty cents and 
your railroad tickets in your pocket. Wouldn’t 
you be glad to have a little woman no bigger than 
I am, with the black bonnet and white ties that 
you think so dreadful, walk up to you and say, 
‘ Let me take the baby while you cool off by wash- 
ing your face and hands, and then we’ll see what 
we can do for the children’? You know babies 
always approve of me. At first the mother keeps 
one eye upon me faithfully, but by the time she is 
through with her ablutions — and the other chil- 
dren always get a share — baby is either fast asleep 
or smiling into my face, and that is enough to 
open the door to the mother’s heart. 

“‘What do I do for them then?’ Sometimes 
I take the children out for a walk, sometimes I 
get them something to eat — the restaurant people 
are always so kind to me when I come with 
‘cases’ — and sometimes I have a good time with 
the children, telling them stories and keeping them 
happy while the mother rests. You haven’t any 
idea, Isabel, of the change in that mother’s face 
after an hour’s rest. 

“ Or suppose you were a fresh young girl from 
the country without the least idea that wolves were 
dogging your footsteps and watching to seize you. 
Yes, human wolves ! I know them, but they man- 


A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 


9 


age to keep just within the law, so I can’t have 
them arrested. The only thing I can do is to cheat 
them out of their prey by keeping watch of the 
girl. Many and many a time I have done this, 
saving the girl from a fate worse than death. 

“I’ve written this between times, when there 
seemed nothing to be done. Now a through train 
is coming, and I must to duty. Good-by, dear. 
It’s lovely to be a Traveler’s Aid. 

"Marian Graham.” 


ii 

"Well, my dear, after you put on that horrid 
bonnet I thought you would get over your habit 
of dreaming day-dreams. But you seem to be 
reveling in the most absurd of all — the possibil- 
ity of my becoming a deaconess! Don’t flatter 
yourself, little woman, that even your influence 
can bring that about, though I’ll own I’m inter- 
ested in the work as you write of it. You must be a 
perfect Godsend to those people, but isn’t it awful 
to do? Don’t you get dirt — and worse things? 
Aren’t you afraid of smallpox or something of that 
sort? 

"About those girls — that really touched me, 
for I actually saved a girl once — I know I did. 
It was on a ferryboat, crossing the North River. 
The girl sat next to me, and on her other side was 
a man — I have to call him so, I suppose, though 


10 A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 


I never think of him as anything hut a fiend. He 
talked loud enough for me to hear, and I saw he 
was trying to get that girl off with him. Such 
things as he said! Of course any carefully 
brought up girl wouldn’t have listened to his bare- 
faced compliments and evil suggestions for one 
moment. But this girl was a foreigner — she had 
evidently been having her Afternoon out/ and 
was half flattered by being noticed and half in- 
clined to think it was a custom of the country. 
I don’t think she understood what he said — cer- 
tainly she didn’t take in what he meant. 

“As we rose to leave the boat he told her to 
wait outside and he would come for her in a mo- 
ment. That was my chance, and I asked her if 
she knew him. When she said ‘No,’ you may 
imagine that I said some other things, and the way 
I hustled that girl on to the street car that she said 
would take her home was a caution. I met the 
man on my way back to the railroad station, look- 
ing as if the earth had opened and swallowed up 
the girl. I don’t think he ever knew how she es- 
caped, but I’ve thanked God many a time that the 
scoundrel talked loud enough for me to hear. 

“ So keep on, old chum. You began helping 
other people ’way back in our boarding-school 
days. Maybe your faith will bring me, after all. 

“ Lovingly ever, 

“Isabel Lawrence.” 


A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 11 


in 

"My Dear Isabel: I couldn’t have told a 
better Traveler’s Aid story myself. Surely the 
Lord helped you, as I know He has helped me 
many a time. 

"You ask if I’m not afraid of ‘ catching 
things.’ Why, dear friend, I gave my whole self 
to the Lord when I took up deaconess work, and 
it’s His part of the business to take care of me. 
When I began work down here I used to wear 
gloves, but they wore out so fast I found I couldn’t 
afford to keep supplied. Then I gave my un- 
gloved hands to the Lord, and it’s all right. 

"I must tell you about a family I had to-day. 
There were four adults and one little crippled 
girl — Poles. They just missed the Western train 
and had to wait here ten hours. They were genu- 
ine peasants, in queer dress and with queer ways. 
But the man talked a little English, and we made 
up in signs what we couldn’t speak, so I found 
out that he wanted to take a ride on the street 
cars. He handed me a dollar and I undertook 
to pilot the party. 

" I assure you we were the ‘ observed of all ob- 
servers.’ When anything pleased them, they 
hugged each other. That seemed to be their 
special way of expressing delight. I was only 
afraid they would think it necessary to go 


12 A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 


through the same process with me, right on the 
car. 

“ The signboards seemed to give them more 
delight than anything else. How they laughed 
and hugged over the great, glaring pictures ! 
The old grandmother hung on to the back of the 
seat and talked — no, screamed — in Polish till 
the tears ran down her cheeks. Conductor and 
motorman and passengers had a rich treat on 
that trip. 

“We got back safely, however, and they were 
so delighted. They kissed my hands over and 
over, and I knew they said ‘ Thank you/ though 
I could not understand the words. 

“ It’s incidents like this, my friend, that 
brighten some of the days that might otherwise 
be monotonous. But it’s all good work, and I am 
very happy in it. Yours as ever, 

“ Marian Graham.” 


iv 

“ Oh, that I had been there with a kodak ! I 
can appreciate the scene, for I’ve just visited the 
Immigrant Station and Immigrant Girls’ Home. 
I declare I half wished — but never mind ! 

“ Our good pastor has inveigled me into visit- 
ing down on Harbor Street, and I’m getting inter- 
ested in spite of myself. Those poor people! 
They need so much more of the real thing than I 


A PACKAGE OF LETTERS 13 


know how to give them. Write me how to help 
them best. Yours sincerely, 

" Isabel Lawrence” 

v 

"Dear Isabel: Go to the training school. You 
can take a course of study that will fit you for 
church work if you don’t want to become a dea- 
coness or a missionary. Who knows what open 
doors the Lord has waiting for you ! 

“ Lovingly, 

“ Marian.” 

vi 

"Dear Marian: Fm going! Maybe Fll wear 
the white ties yet. Do you think they would be 
becoming? And I want you to know, dear, that 
it’s your little word about girls who need help — 
that and my own experience — that has done it all. 
If I can give to girls who need it some of the 
sheltering love and care that has blessed my life 
I shall be so happy. What do you suppose my 
dear mother says? ‘I gave you to the Lord, my 
child, when you first lay in my arms, and I knew 
He would lead you/ Isn’t that enough to make 
a girl break right down? 

" My next letter will be written from the train- 
ing school. I feel like saying, ‘ Hold the fort, for 
I am coming/ Yours gratefully, 

"Isabel Lawrence.” 


n UNCLE SAM’S “ HOW D’Y’ DO ” 



UNCLE SAM’S “HOW D’Y’ DO” 

"We, the people of the United States,” give 
cordial welcome to all immigrants who are good 
and true, to all who come as honest, re- 
spectable citizens to help develop and strengthen 
onr land. But we look askance, as we have the 
right to do, upon those whom the law pronounces 
“not qualified” to enter the country. To these 
we say, “We want no paupers — we have enough 
of our own — and no criminals — we can manu- 
facture them, alas, faster than we can take care 
of them. You who come from lands where labor 
is ill-paid and ill-cared for, you must not come 
here under contract to work, for by so doing you 
would take the bread from the mouths of our own 
working people. Stand aside — you here and you 
there — until we can speed you on your way or 
decide who of you would be a burden or a menace 
to us and so must be sent back to the land from 
which you came.” 

The larger part of this sifting process goes on 
at the Immigrant Station on Ellis Island, in New 
York Harbor. The building looks out upon a 
panorama that has few equals in the world. To 
the northeast lies the great metropolis, its jagged 


UNCLE SAM’S “ HOW D’Y’ DO ” 15 


horizon line telling of toil and straggle, but the 
green lawn of Battery Park in the foreground 
suggesting that there is rest as well as labor in 
this New World. Back and forth ply the ships 
of all nations, great steamers pass up the rivers 
to discharge their passengers and cargoes, and 
steam outward on their return voyages; trading 
vessels from all over the world ride at anchor or 
sail majestically by; ferry-boats, the shuttles 
of the city’s life-web, glide back and forth between 
its shores, and saucy tugs and stupid canal-boats 
add variety to the scene. 

Enter the gallery of the main hall of the Sta- 
tion, and watch the steerage passengers — two 
thousand and more — landing from a European 
steamer. Are those heavy-browed men, those 
dull-faced women, good material for American 
citizenship ? Look into the “ detention room,” 
with its dirt, its smells, and its general disagree- 
ableness, and you say, “ America for Ameri- 
cans.” 

But Uncle Sam is wiser. He knows that 
through just such unpromising material the 
Western deserts have been made to “ bud and blos- 
som as the rose,” that by it railroads are built, 
canals are dug and mines are worked. He realizes 
that those sturdy youngsters, entering our public 
schools, will find opening before them a world of 
possibilities that could never have been theirs on 


16 UNCLE SAM’S “HOW D’Y’ DO” 


the other side of the sea. He knows that they will 
grow up into typical American citizens. 

The long line of immigrants passes in single 
file before the alert eyes of two physicians. “ Hats 
off” is the order, as a steady glance from the 
doctor seems to pierce to the very soul. It is not 
a bad thing that the first lesson taught on this 
side is to look a man straight in the eye and not 
be afraid. On this inspection by the doctors de- 
pends the first sifting process, for signals from 
them separate the sick from the well, give a 
woman who needs kindly care and attention into 
the hands of the waiting matrons, and place by 
themselves those whose condition requires that 
they should be separated from the others. 

Still further division is made when the regis- 
try clerks are passed. Here is a man with his 
family. They have answered all questions 
promptly and satisfactorily; they have tickets 
through to the far West; they are in perfect 
health, and there is no reason for detaining them. 
They may go on as promptly as steam will carry 
them; such people are needed out there. 

But they are not turned adrift, strangers in a 
strange land, to find their way to railroad station 
or ferry-boat. To do that would be to invite dis- 
aster. An agent of the railroad company sends 
them directly from the island to the railroad 
station, and places them on the right train. 


UNCLE SAM’S “HOW D’Y’ DO” 17 


Here is a woman who was cautioned before 
leaving home to answer no questions and hold 
no conversation with strangers. Frightened at 
the unaccustomed surroundings, she refuses to 
answer the entry clerks, and is detained for in- 
vestigation by the Board of Special Inquiry. 
Fortunately for her, a kindly missionary will get 
the truth of her story and see that the officials 
understand it. In this room is another — a piti- 
ful case, a mother with helpless children clinging 
to her dress, and one in her arms. Her sole pro- 
vision for them all is fifty cents in money, and 
she has no friends in this country. What dreams 
of streets in which money lay for the picking 
have sent the poor woman across the seas? And 
what can lie before her but return to the land 
that is responsible for them all! 

Dark-browed anarchists, fugitives from justice, 
men under contract for labor in the new land, 
indeed, “ all sorts and conditions ” of humanity 
are found here, and it requires almost infinite 
patience to deal with them justly and yet kindly. 
To the credit of the United States government 
and its agents be it said that but rarely is there 
evidence of impatience among those who handle 
these motley and often repulsive crowds for seven 
days in the week and fifty-two weeks in the year, 
barring a rare holiday. 

But only one side of the work, interesting as 


18 UNCLE SAM’S “HOW D’Y’ DO” 


it is, will be seen if we fail to accompany the 
missionaries on their rounds. The Woman’s 
Home Missionary Society of the Methodist 
Church, the Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union, and many other organizations maintain 
regular workers on Ellis Island. But the visitor 
need not look for prayer meetings and preaching 
services. To begin with, this is but a halting 
place; few remain longer than twenty-four hours, 
except the small minority detained for probable 
return, and most of the arrivals go forward with 
but few hours’ delay. Differences in language 
make it possible to talk, in most cases, only 
through an interpreter, and even the printed 
Testament or leaflet would often be useless because 
its receiver could not read. 

But the language of Christly love is universal. 
And when a gentle, motherly woman provides 
a bath for the little one who is clothed in rags 
and covered with dirt, the baby’s mother knows 
that it is done in the spirit of the Christ, even 
if she thanks, perhaps in unknown patois, the 
Virgin Mother. 

With the best intentions in the world, the gov- 
ernment authorities can give but little individual 
succor; that they do as much as they do is a 
wonder to the looker-on. But without the aid 
of the missionaries many a poor woman would 
suffer life-shipwreck of hopes and dreams, many 


THE IMMIGRANT CHAPTER 19 


a troubled heart would find its cup of sorrow 
needlessly bitter. “I cannot thank you enough 
for what you did for me” is a common message 
from those who, helped to go on their way re- 
joicing, remember in brighter days the helping 
hand that was outstretched in their hour of special 
need. 

On Bedloe’s Island, a little south of the Immi- 
grant Station, is the statue of Liberty, a memorial 
of our centennial year. Hard by where the Pil- 
grims first set foot upon New England rock stands 
another sculptured woman- form. Passing the 
Liberty statue on our homeward way, we may 
well fancy it signaling to the statue of Faith on 
the Plymouth coast — a wireless message to which 
comes the response — -a good word that the Immi- 
grant Station on Ellis Island is helping to fulfill : 

• “ God’s in His heaven, 

All’s right with the world.” 


THE IMMIGRANT CHAPTER 

Did it ever occur to you what a wonderful home 
missionary chapter is the second of Acts? In 
obedience to the Master’s commands, the little 
company of disciples were waiting in Jerusalem 


20 THE IMMIGRANT CHAPTER 


for the “ promise of the Father.” They were 
about to be sent forth as missionaries of the Cross, 
but the work must begin at home — in Jerusalem, 
where the Master had taught, where one of His 
chosen had betrayed Him, where He had suffered 
and died, and where, thank God, He had risen; 
in Jerusalem, where the opposition was most 
bitter, the enmity most malignant, the Roman con- 
trol most powerful; in Jerusalem, where it was 
most dangerous to side with Jesus of Nazareth, 
where it was most humiliating to stand for Him 
who had suffered the shameful death of a male- 
factor. And yet, “ Beginning at Jerusalem,” was 
the Master’s word. 

But then, as now, the work begun at Jerusalem 
was to extend through the earth, and in God’s 
providence the means for this end were at hand. 
Look at the long list of immigrants in the ninth 
and tenth and eleventh verses of this chapter. 
“ Parthians ” and “Medes” and “ Elamites,” 
the men from all nations under the heavens, as 
then known, gathered there right where they 
might hear Peter’s wonderful sermon. 

“We need all the tongues of Pentecost,” says 
the Secretary of a Missionary Board, "to preach 
the Gospel in the United States.” And he adds 
as a corollary: "We must take care of this coun- 
try for the country’s sake and for the world’s 
sake.” “ All the tongues of Pentecost ” means to 


WITH A NURSE DEACONESS 21 


us, to-day, Russian and Italian, Swede and Pole, 
Chinese, J apanese, Irish, Hungarian, African, 
Egyptian — the list is well-nigh endless, but the 
registry of immigrants at any port of entry con- 
firms the statement. What shall be done with 
them ? They are coming in record-breaking num- 
bers. There is danger in their coming unless we 
meet them as did the disciples of old, telling, " as 
the Spirit gives utterance,” of "the wonderful 
works of God.” 

Read Peter’s first home missionary sermon, and 
take into your hearts the meaning of that wonder- 
ful missionary verse : " The promise is unto your 
children, and to all that are afar off.” 


WITH A NURSE DEACONESS 

The day begins at midnight. "The baby’s 
awful sick. Won’t the nurse come?” 

Of course ! What else are nurses for ? There’s 
a hurried telephone call to the police station, a 
question if there is an officer on that block — for 
there is danger in going, even if the deaconess 
has no fear — a donning of cloak and bonnet and 
a walk in the darkness. 

The baby is sick, indeed. It’s a bitter cold 


22 WITH A NURSE DEACONESS 


night, and the mother is shivering in front of a 
tiny fire, with the little one in her lap, and 
nothing in the world to give him but sips of tea. 
At earliest daybreak the deaconess starts out to 
find some milk for the little one, reaching the 
milkman’s door just in time to see his wagon 
disappearing around the next corner. Nothing 
daunted she rouses the house, and to her inquiry 
a woman looking down from an upper window 
answers, “ I haven’t a drop of milk in the house. 
My man has taken it all.” 

“ But I must have some for a sick baby. He’ll 
die without it. Can’t you come down and find 
me a little ? ” 

She could and did, after a little persuasion, 
and the sick baby lived and became a strong and 
healthy boy. 

<c Such a time as I had in that house,” says 
the deaconess as we pass a rickety, miserable 
tenement. “An old man and his wife lived 
there, both foreigners who couldn’t speak a word 
of English, and the man was sick. I didn’t 
wonder when I found he hadn’t had a bath for 
six months! 

“He was between two feather beds, of course, 
and I had a hard time to get consent to take off 
the upper one in the daytime. They wouldn’t 
hear at all to keeping it off at night.” 


WITH A NURSE DEACONESS 23 


“I can appreciate your trouble,” says an- 
other nurse. "I believe the worst time I ever 
had was with a patient who was inside a feather 
bed! Yes, actually inside. They were so poor 
that they had but the one bed, and between 
feathers he must be, so what else could they do! 
It’s pitiful, but it’s funny, the way we have to 
talk by signs in lots of cases. I almost had to 
pull the patient out myself before I could get 
them to understand what I wanted.” 

“Do the people ever offer to pay you?” asks 
the friend by their side. 

“ Very often. Nothing brings the tears to my 
eyes so quickly as to have a man say, ‘Well, 
nurse, what do I owe you ? ’ But it gives me the 
chance to say, ‘Nothing, but to love Jesus/” 

“If you want me at any hour of the night be 
sure to send for me.” It was the parting word 
in a room where the husband lay in the last 
stages of consumption. The night’s rest was 
short, for at daybreak the message came. The 
listening ear caught the familiar footsteps before 
they entered his room, and the sick man cried 
eagerly, “ Oh, there’s Miss R. ! She’ll feel my 
pulse and tell me how long I have to live. Don’t 
fool me ! ” he added, his earnest eyes looking 
into those of the faithful deaconess. And she — 
they were solemn words to speak as her fingers 


24 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 


closed over the fluttering pulse — she said, “ But 
a very short time.” Solemn but not sorrowful, 
for when the death angel left that home he bore 
with him a redeemed soul to a home in the 
“ many mansions.” 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 

“ Flower House” — that is what the children 
of the neighborhood call the Deaconess Home. 
Could there be a sweeter name? 

But the children are not the only ones who 
share the ministry of the flowers. Coming home 
one evening after church, with the pulpit flowers 
in her hands, the deaconess passed a group of 
young men lounging on a corner. Something in 
their faces arrested her attention, and she turned 
back. 

“ Would you like a rose?” she asked with a 
smile. 

Would they? You should have seen their faces. 
“ Thank you, ma’am,” was the chorus of reply, 
and one added, “We don’t get them very often.” 

The deaconess put one of the beautiful blos- 
soms into each waiting hand, and then said, 
“ How, boys, you won’t go into the saloon to-night, 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 


25 


will you?” The clear, determined “No, ma’am,” 
that answered her was a welcome assurance. 

The roses had been destined for sick beds the 
next day. Who shall say that they did not do 
more good where the deaconess gave them ? 

• • • • • 

“Miss A, will you come around to our house 
to-night? We want a little talk with you.” 

It was the request of a teacher. One hardly 
thought of trouble in her home, but there was a 
shadow in the face and a tone in the voice that 
were indexes to the sad story — alas, so often 
told — revealed to the deaconess. 

They were orphaned girls, the teacher and her 
sisters, one much younger than the other two, 
and impatient of the restraints their love and 
wiser thought knew to be necessary. “ Can’t you 

get hold of ? She is beyond our reach already, 

and we know she is in the path to ruin. Oh, do 
help us ! ” 

The end is not yet — but — there is the deaconess. 

“ Is it all downright hard work, the work of a 
deaconess? Are they always going into dark 
streets and up broken stairways, and all alone? 
Don’t they have any good times like other 
folks ? ” 

So asks a looker-on. Let Miss L. answer: 

“I’m working in the ideal church. There are 


26 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 


a lot of young people in it, working men and 
women, and real downright Christians. They 
believe in doing the Lord’s work in business-like 
ways, not in getting up fairs and things to meet 
church expenses. When money is needed they 
put their hands into their pockets and take it 
out to the best of their ability. 

“ They’re ready for other Christian work, too. 
The other night a company of them went with 
me to hold a prayer meeting in the home of an 
old lady, ninety-two years of age. She was so 
happy she wanted to talk all the time.” 

“No fun in that”? Ah, but do it for Jesus’ 
sake, and then see how it seems. 

“No, I didn’t want to live any longer. Why 
should I? It’s nothing but misery. My man 
will drink, and I can’t get enough for us to eat 
to hold body and soul together. Many’s the time 
that I’ve put the bits I could scrape up on the 
table for him and the children, and then gone 
out and sat on the floor at the top of the stairs 
lest I should eat some of it in spite of myself. 
There wasn’t enough to go around. 

“ And how do you think, miss, I’m going to 
take care of another one, when it comes? The 
poor children that’s here now is starving.” 

It was a pitiful case, indeed, one that stirred 
the sympathies of the deaconess to their depths. 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 


27 

The immediate needs must be relieved, and, 
somehow, hope and courage and cheer must be 
imparted to the worn and weary mother-heart. 
With unceasing pains the deaconess visited that 
poor apology for a home, gradually making it 
cleaner and more inviting, and caring for the 
little new-comer, whom God in mercy soon took 
back to Himself. Then the same gentle care- 
taker dressed the tiny form for its blessed sleep, 
brought a minister, and stood by the mother to 
the last of the sad services. Better still, she con- 
tinued to “ stand by,” helping and cheering in 
such ways as angels know. 

A still hunt — that is it! Just calling from 
house to house, making a canvass for church 
letters. “Why, where is mine? I haven’t seen 
it for an age. Really, I must hunt it up. You 
see, when we came here we were strangers, and 
we sort of drifted from one church to another, 
and lately we haven’t gone anywhere very much.” 

Of course not! When did drifting bring a 
mariner safely to port? But the children will 
be welcomed at Sunday-school, and an aroused 
conscience will do its work with the parents. 

“ Ho,” answers the deaconess in reply to a ques- 
tion, “no, I have no regular class in Sunday- 
school, I’m a substitute teacher. Of course I 


28 


EVERYDAY SERVICE 


don’t enjoy it as well as I should a regular class, 
and it’s more difficult to prepare your lesson when 
you have no idea what grade you will teach. But 
then a deaconess, you know, is a filler-in-of 
chinks” 

It is midnight in the lowest dive of New York 
City — that is what the officials call it, in uncon- 
scious imitation of Dante’s Inferno. Is it safe 
for a party of Christian workers to enter? Is it 
ever unsafe to go where work may be done for the 
Master? Through dark alleys and still darker 
hallways they have passed, but the horror of the 
scene within makes physical darkness seem day- 
light. 

But there are girls here who long to escape — 
girls who have been decoyed and betrayed. One 
of them has kept a two-dollar bill hidden in the 
toe of her shoe for weeks, waiting for an open 
door. “ Oh, you may get them away,” cry the 
wretched occupants of the dive, “ but for every 
one you take we’ll get a dozen more, and those 
who go will come back.” 

“ I cannot describe it,” says the deaconess who 
tells the story. “We looked into hell.” And in 
that horror of great darkness, that utmost depth 
of sin and shame, they sang, “Let a little sun- 
shine in.” Sang — breathed up to God the prayer 
they might not speak — and left results with Him. 


DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 29 



A DEACONESS IN THE MINING REGION 

“ Have you ever been in the heart of the min- 
ing regions? If not, you cannot understand the 
conditions surrounding the workers there. In 

C where I was stationed, the winter winds 

sweep down the mountain sides with terrific force, 
while in summer the electrical storms are fearful. 
My work was not only in the town itself, but 
among the people of the * patches/ These are 
little groups of miners’ cabins, with no stores, 
no churches, no schools, but with countless sa- 
loons — ‘ speak-easies/ most of them. 

"It used to seem to me that these were the 
people the Master meant when He spoke of those 
for whose souls no man cares. They were mostly 
foreigners, and of the lowest types. I have seen 
in the streets of C Poles, Huns, Italians, In- 

dians, Syrians, Chinese, and even Moors. There 
were ‘ Little Italy/ ‘ Little Hungary/ and so on, 
and the people were practically ignored by the 
law as well as by schools and, almost, by churches. 
Thefts and murders, though of common occur- 
rence, were unnoticed so far as any attempt at 
discovery and punishment was concerned. 


30 DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 


“I must tell you about Lazarus Row. It was 
a long line of houses, each rented by a man who, 
in turn, sublet lodging rooms to other men. Each 
house had three rooms on its lower floor, the 
middle one being dark. This space and that on 
the second floor — one room, or two, as it chanced 
— would be rented out to forty other men, each of 
whom, by paying one dollar a month, had the 
privilege of sleeping on the floor and a chance 
to cook his own food in the common kitchen. 
You may imagine the results from such herding! 

“But the strikes were the worst. I could 
hardly eat my own food for the thoughts of the 
starving faces that I could see even when my eyes 
were closed. I remember one mother who lived 
in a cellar with three little children. One day, 
in desperation, she walked over the mountains to 
try to find her husband who was at work there 
and get a little money from him. She reached 
the place only to learn that he had just been 
killed in the mine ! When I found those children 
they had managed to get some cold potatoes, and 
were devouring them like wild animals. 

“ I went to the editor of one of the papers in 
town, and told him the story. He would not 
believe it. 

“ f Oh, no/ he said. * I don’t doubt they were 
hungry, but you don’t mean people are actually 
starving here.’ 


DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 31 


“ ‘ I mean exactly that/ I said. ‘ Come with 
me and see for yourself/ We went together, 
finding that the only thing the family had to eat 
was some chicken corn! 

“ c It is awful ! , said he. 6 You can have my 
paper for anything you want/ 

“ The story was printed with big headlines, and 
we organized relief work. The school children 
helped by each bringing something, if only half 
a dozen potatoes or a loaf of bread. A member 
of the corporation sent us fifty dollars, and there 
was generous response from the citizens. How 
the supplies poured in! I felt like a miniature 
edition of Clara Barton. Every case was person- 
ally investigated, and such a task as it was! 
Bare-footed children with handkerchiefs over 
their heads would follow me in the street, crying: 

“‘I want some eat! That eat all gone. I 
want some eat ! 5 

"I came near getting into trouble with Mike 
Grass. Mike lived in the middle room of a house 
on Lazarus Row. His fellow-inmates were 
Italians, rough, coal-marked workmen who could 
speak no English. The case was reported to me 
as that of a man with several children; but the 
‘ children ’ were these Italians, who were ‘ bach- 
ing/ I learned the truth about it, but it would 
have been unsafe to make Mike and his Italians 
my enemies, so I had to give him something, if 


32 DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 


not more than a few potatoes. The Italians, as 
a rule, live on greens and macaroni, the Poles 
on beer and dry bread. 

“Then there was Tasco. When I went to his 
house the door was locked, and there was a long 
delay before it was opened by a girl of the pure 
Italian type. A boy as beautiful stood behind 
her. I asked for their mother. A man appeared, 
and then others, till in two minutes the room 
was filled with black-haired, handsome Italians, 
in low-necked, red woolen shirts. The one woman 
among them, her babe in her arms, looked like a 
veritable Madonna. But they couldn't talk Eng- 
lish, nor I Italian, so I left without much satis- 
faction, though I fancy they understood me better 
than they seemed to. 

“ That afternoon a tall, fine-looking young 
fellow came to the office and said: ‘I villa see 
voman.' 

“ ‘ And who are you ? ' I asked. 

“ ‘ I Tasco Alfan. I no nodings to eat/ 

“‘You bach?' 

“ ‘Yes, I bach. I no — I no — I plenty mad ! 
They can English, but they no favor me!' 

“ Then I understood that for some reason the 
other inmates of the house would not share with 
him. 

“‘What do you want?' 

“‘Vat you give me?' 


DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 33 


“‘I give you some potatoes.’ He took the 
potatoes, and by degrees I learned his story. 
e Why not go home to your mother ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ When I get money/ he replied, ‘ I go to my 
mother. I no eat from my mother.’ 

“ ‘ Company stores ? ’ Oh, yes, the amount due 
the men was credited on the books of the com- 
pany, and they had to buy there whatever they 
bought or lose their jobs — and the stores often 
charged double what the same goods could be 
bought for elsewhere. 

“ These foreigners do not lose their old country 
customs in coming to America. Indeed, there is 
no opportunity for them to lose them through con- 
tact with Americans. Women, for instance, 
always walk some three paces behind their hus- 
bands when they go out together. The only for- 
eign Protestant church in C was Lithuanian, 

with a handsome young Bohemian as its pastor. 
He spoke six languages, and seemed very desirous 
of being on social terms with Americans of the 
better class. But in spite of his intelligence and 
of quite a romance connected with his marriage, 
it never occurred to either of them that his wife 
was his social equal. 

“ My ‘ white ties ’ attracted attention, of course, 
and often served as an introduction and a protec- 
tion. We frequently held services at a place to 
which the people were accustomed to go on Sun- 


34 DEACONESS IN MINING REGION 


days, spending the day in drinking and gambling. 
They gathered around us in crowds, especially the 
‘ breaker boys/ By the way, I made a great fight 
for a night-school for my ‘breaker boys/ Think 
of it — overgrown boys of fifteen and sixteen years 
of age, who knew not the form of a letter, to say 
nothing of reading! 

“ Perhaps Scotch Geordie and his friends were 
my greatest delight. It seemed as if they were 
taken directly from the ‘ Bonnie Briar Bush/ 
Geordie worked in the ‘ breast ’ next to Jamie, and 
one day he came to me with a petition. Jamie’s 
father was sick — would I go and see him? I 
went, of course, but learned little of his needs, 
for the Scotch are too proud to receive help if 
possible to avoid it. For the first visit or two 
they answered only in monosyllables ; but I 
prayed with them, and kept on going. One day 
the mother left me alone with her husband while 
she gathered a bouquet of poor little flowers for 
me — and I knew I had found the way to her 
heart. 

“ ‘ Marget,’ the husband would call if she were 
out of his sight. 

“‘Yea, Willum, I will come/ was her quick 
reply. Her heart was breaking with anxiety and 
fear, but never a word of it did she speak, or make 
any demonstration of affection. 

“‘Willum’ recovered, and I went away for a 


“IT DON’T MATTER NOTHIN’” 35 


brief vacation. On my return I found Marget 
had been taken sick and was dying. She was 
passionately fond of birds, and as I entered her 
room she cried: 

“ 6 Do you hear the birds ? Hark ! the birds are 
singing. Isn’t it sweet ? Do you know what they 
are singing ? They are singing, ‘ Sleep, sleep, 
sleep.’ ” 

“ On the last day both J amie and his father 
were at home. It was pitiful to see the sorrow of 
the strong man and hear him cry : ‘ Do you know 
me, Marget ? Do you know me ? ’ Then, turning 
to me, he would ask wistfully: ‘Do you think 
she hears?’ 

“ The next morning Jamie and his father 
opened the door for me and led me into the front 
room where Marget lay — the birds had sung her 
to sleep.” 



“ IT DON’T MATTER NOTHIN’” 

The dear little people in the kindergarten, 
sunny and bright-faced even though they 
came from the want and suffering of tenement 
houses, knew nothing of death save as a time 
when people are especially distinguished — a time 


36 “IT DON’T MATTER NOTHIN’” 


for a “free ride.” One day “the angel whom 
men call death” lingered in a poor, mean little 
room in the heart of the slums. But a moment 
he tarried, hut when he passed on the wee baby 
was beyond all suffering. The children who 
crowded the stairs had never come into personal 
touch with this strange visitant before. They 
had known the baby — had kissed his dimpled 
hands and laughed to meet his gleeful cry as 
they came. And now he was so still ! 

Small wonder that when “Nurse Pansy” 
came they clung to her dress with an unvoiced 
feeling that she could keep them from all harm. 
“Nurse Pansy” and “teacher” represented for 
them all of hope and good cheer that the world 
held for little people. They had named her 
themselves, the day she brought pansies when the 
baby’s mother was sick. It was her first visit, 
but she had been there many times since. 

The children were very quiet. Even Tommie, 
the irrepressible, leaned against the wall without 
pinching his neighbor or trying to push Jamie 
downstairs. And “Nurse Pansy’s” heart went 
out to the little waifs, face to face with life’s 
great mystery. The stairs were very dirty — so 
were the children. But right down among them 
she sat, and gathered them into her dear, moth- 
erly arms. “I want to tell you,” she said, and 
the children caught the tone of tears in her voice, 


“IT DON’T MATTER NOTHIN’” 37 


and it made them still more quiet — “I want to 
tell you about the baby. You remember the 
Christmas story, about baby Jesus in the manger, 
and of how God loved him and took care of 
him.” 

The sober faces brightened. The Christmas 
sunshine was not all spent, though many a week 
had passed since they frolicked around the 
Christmas tree. 

“ God loves all the babies,” “ Nurse Pansy ” 
went on. “ Sometimes he sends them, as he did 
here, into homes where it is very hard to live. Do 
you know why? I think one reason is to make 
people better by loving them. When you’ve 
played with the dear baby upstairs haven’t you 
felt a little warm glow of love in your heart ? ” 
Oh, yes, they all knew what she meant, though 
they could no more have put it into words than 
we older folk can find language for our deepest 
feelings. 

“But God knew that baby would have a hard 
time if he grew up here, for he wouldn’t be able 
to run about and play as you do — his little limbs 
were not strong as yours are. So God only lent 
him to his mamma and his papa and to you for 
a little while. And now he has called the baby 
to come back to his beautiful home in heaven. 
Aren’t you glad?” 

Back to her own smiled the child faces, glad 


38 “IT DON’T MATTER NOTHIN ’ 99 


with the new sense of protection and love — all 
but Tommie; and he, wise with the superior 
wisdom of one year more than the others, and 
the sharpened observation of a hard life, cried: 
“ They puts ’em in the ground, they does ! I 
sedn ’em when my little brother died. That ain’t 
heaven ! ” 

“Oh, no, Tommie,” cried the deaconess, her 
face all aglow with love as she eagerly caught up 
his words. “No, indeed, for heaven is a beauti- 
ful place; a great deal more beautiful than any 
place you and I ever saw; more beautiful than 
any place on earth. I’ll tell you how it is. 
When I was a little girl I had a pretty red 
flannel dress. It was so warm and bright that 
I always liked to wear it, and my mamma used 
to call me * Robin Redbreast’ when I had it on. 
But I grew so fast that the pretty dress had 
to be put aside before it was half worn out. 
If you should go to my home you could see it 
safely laid away in a box, but I can’t wear it, 
for it wouldn’t fit me now. That is the way with 
these bodies of ours — they are just dresses for 
the real Katie and Tommie and Jamie and Flor- 
ence and Mary. When you look at the baby, as 
you may pretty soon, you’ll see his little body, 
all white and beautiful, but the real baby, the 
part of him that was alive, has gone to God. It 
is just baby’s body, the dress for his soul, you 


“SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 39 


know, that will be put into the ground. But 
baby is with Jesus.” 

The awe and mystery of it all was in the little 
eyes, echoed in the tiptoeing footsteps, and 
sounded through the silence as “ Nurse Pansy ” 
led them to the bedside. Did they understand? 
Oh, no ! Neither do we, who are older and wiser 
grown. But as they turned away Tommie 
whispered, “It don’t matter nothin’, does it, 
what they does with ’em, ’cause they’s gone to 
J esus ! ” And the deaconess knew the sweet old 
lesson had reached one little heart. 


“SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 

“ Seems to me everybody is determined I shall 
be a deaconess or a missionary of some sort ! ” Nell 
Munson threw herself down upon the lounge in 
her own sunny room with a trace of most unusual 
peevishness in her voice. “ When I said I thought 
we ought to do some highway and hedge work in 
our young people’s society, Flossie Williams asked 
if I was planning to be a missiqnary. And when 
Tom saw me coming out of the boarding house 
down on Smith Street he cried, ‘ Halloa, sis ! 
Turned deaconess? Where are the white ties? 


40 44 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 


They’ll put you out if you don’t wear them.’ I 
do hate to have Tom get started on such a strain 
— he never lets up on it. 

44 But the worst was Mrs. Rose. 4 I’ve been 
waiting for you, dear,’ she said as I came down the 
aisle after prayer meeting. 4 1 wanted to tell you 
that it seems to me the Lord has a special work 
for you. Have you ever thought of being a dea- 
coness?’ Have I ever thought of it? As if it 
hadn’t haunted me day and night ever since my 
visit to the training school. I was hateful, yes, 
real mean. Somehow, the question touched such 
a sore spot that I couldn’t seem to answer prop- 
erly. I just said, 'It takes saints to be deacon- 
esses, and I’m not a bit of a saint, Mrs. Rose.’ 

44 Oh, dear, I don’t want to think of it, for I’m 
afraid, way down in my heart, that my conscience 
would have something to say about it if I’d give 
it a chance. I wonder how it would seem. I 
don’t want to give up pretty clothes, and I 
don’t believe father and mother would let me go, 
anyway. I guess” — and just then the puzzled 
brain stopped thinking and went on a dreamland 
search. 

Stopped thinking — but it did not stop working. 
Brains are curious things. Who can tell how it is 
that when consciousness is paralyzed conscience 
can still speak ? Who knows through what 
realms of the fancy that is close kin to reality the 


“SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 41 


brain seeks for explanations and reasons that have 
baffled its powers hitherto? We talk of dreams 
— but there are some things difficult to explain 
unless we remember that to One of old, soulworn 
and weary, “ angels came and ministered.” 

Be that as it may, Nell Munson will never for- 
get the dream that came in that afternoon sleep 
op. a fair June day. “I thought I was standing 
in a great hall” — so she tells the story — “ a hall 
that was wide open at the side to every wind that 
blew. It was empty, or seemed so to my eyes. 
But there was a curious consciousness of a Pres- 
ence not far away, and the echo of voices. Pillars 
were set in regular order around the outer edge of 
the floor, supporting the roof, but the room was 
bare as well as tenantless. 

“ A strange sensation of loneliness, of being left 
out of things, came over me. I found myself 
fighting back tears, and just as they began to fall 
in spite of me, I saw a crowd of people outside. 
There were men and women — ‘all sorts and con- 
ditions , of them. But oh, so weary, so hopeless! 
I am sure I shall never see such faces in my wak- 
ing hours as I saw in my dream. Crowding into 
the hall, they swept past me and on toward the 
place where I had fancied there stood an unseen 
Presence. Just a moment they paused there, and 
then the great procession passed on, but with such 
a change ! It is impossible to describe it. Every 


42 “SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 


face was lifted, every step was firm and steady; 
the light of a new hope and a glad new purpose 
was in every eye. 

“Then I saw a band of little children come 
slowly on — slowly, when their feet should have 
kept time to the music of happy years. Hand in 
hand they came, and I said to myself, ‘ Oh, more 
sorrow! They must unclasp their hands to pass 
these great pillars, and some of them will fall. If 
I could but help them ! ? But the pillars checked 
no whit their onward coming. Past me they 
surged, pale little faces and crippled forms, some 
with crime and all with suffering writ large upon 
them. I stretched out my hands to help them, 
but the eager fingers touched only empty air, and 
still the children came. 

“ Then I turned toward the Presence, but I saw 
it not. Only as the little children passed where 
I thought One was waiting for them, each was 
caught up as with tender, loving arms — caught 
and held for a moment, and then set down. But 
the moment had within itself all possibilities of 
help and cheer that earth can know. Little feet 
bounded away in sheer delight of living, and 
ripples of childish laughter floated across to me. 

“ Again I turned toward the outer air, but only 
to shrink back in terror. No word was spoken, 
but I knew that the great company before me was 
frantic and perishing from hunger and thirst. 


“SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS” 43 


‘ Oh, take this/ I cried in agony, holding out the 
tiny flask of water that I had carefully saved for 
my own needs. But they thrust it by with impa- 
tient hands, and when I looked I saw that it had 
become stagnant with long keeping. Then I, too, 
grew thirsty, and with the thirst came an over- 
whelming desire to help these, my brothers and 
sisters. I tried to move forward, but my feet 
refused to obey my will. Then I turned and fol- 
lowed, and my feet bore me swiftly toward the 
mighty Presence. 

“ I know not what I saw — or if any vision came 
to my eyes. I only know that I cried out, ‘ Dear 
Lord, let me minister to these. Thy children/ and 
that I felt no more soul-hunger or soul-thirst; 
and I was lifted up and a Voice whispered softly, 
‘ Inasmuch as ye help these, ye do it unto Me/ 

“ I wakened to find the question of my lifework 
fully settled. I had heard the Master’s voice, I 
had seen what His hand could do for men and 
women. Like the little children I had been lifted 
up in the ‘ everlasting arms/ and I knew that 
from thenceforth my greatest joy would be the 
telling of His love to those who knew Him not. 
And that is how I came to be a deaconess.” 


44 A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 



r A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 

<c Oh, yes, I’ll give you a dollar, if that’s what 
you want. But I haven’t a minute of time to 
spare, and it’s simply impossible for me to come to 
the meetings. You mustn’t expect me.” 

Dear Lady Bountiful, have you ever said this? 
Or were the words spoken by that busy neighbor 
of yours who has a household so well regulated 
that she is the envy and wonder of her friends, is 
the teacher of a flourishing Sabbath-school class, 
is never absent from the church prayer-meeting, 
and is an officer in a half-dozen church societies? 

“ Of course not,” you say. “ The more that 
woman has to do, the more she seems ready to do. 
And she looks supremely happy through it all. I 
wish I had her secret I get so tired sometimes 
that life doesn’t seem half worth living, and yet 
I don’t seem to do anything worth while.” 

Ah, my Lady, you have given away your own 
secret, all unconsciously, perhaps. It is the 
“ worth while ” that counts, that brings the lighf 
to the eyes, the elasticity to the step, the courage 
to the heart. Never mind the things you have 
been doing. They may all be good things, excel- 


A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 45 


lent things. What I want to show yon now is that 
you are suffering heavy personal loss by not be- 
coming familiar with home missionary work. If 
familiar with it, interest in it will follow as a 
matter of course, so we’ll leave that out of account. 
Never mind, either, the good that you may do for 
others. Let us look at the question simply from 
the selfish standpoint for a moment. 

You are an American woman, an American 
citizen. As such, anything that touches the honor 
of your country, anything that safeguards your 
country, is a matter of keen personal interest to 
you. When the nation sprang to arms for the res- 
cue of Cuba, you wore, with thousands of others, 
the tiny flag that told its silent story of patriotism 
— wore it until the Spanish flag gave way to the 
banner of Cuba Libre, and the nation began the 
no less important study of the ways of peace. 

Why did you stand with the Government then? 
Why did you not say : “ I have no time to read 

the newspapers, or to inform myself concerning 
events in the Caribbean Sea — if you want a dollar 
towards the affair, here it is.” 

“Men, women and children, my brothers and 
sisters by the ties of humanity, were being tortured 
unto death,” you answer. “ And, besides, a fever 
demon lurked in those islands that threatened our 
own land, and we were forced to act in self-protec- 
tion.” 


46 A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 


To-day women and little children are tortured 
even unto death, and with worse than physical 
torture, in Chinese slave-dens and Alaskan topeks. 
To-day illiteracy in the South, and a growing 
illiteracy through foreign immigration in the East, 
threaten the very life of the body politic. Is it 
nothing to you? 

“I hate,” says Emerson, “the prostitution of 
the name of friendship to signify modish and 
worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of 
plow-boys and tin-peddlers to the silken and per- 
fumed amity which only celebrates its days of en- 
counter by a frivolous display, by rides in a cur- 
ricle, and dinners at the best taverns.” But it is 
not necessary to seek “ plow-boys and tin- 
peddlers ” in order to enlarge our field of vision, 
to embrace within our circle of acquaintance an 
entirely new set of those whom we may call friends. 

Suppose, for instance, little Carmelita in Porto 
Rico, or Fernanda, speaking the soft Spanish 
tongue in New Mexico, or Rosa of the Navajos, 
or Magnolia from a Southern cabin, knew you as 
one who really cared for her, and you knew her as 
a child from a home that was no home, a child 
whose open door to life with its possibilities had 
been set wide by your hands — would not all life 
have a richer meaning thereby? And while you 
are coming to know Carmelita, by the same token 
you are sitting down by the side of your sisters in 


A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 47 


the patios , and your own life is strengthened by 
ministering to their weakness, your own gratitude 
is deepened by contrasting your home with theirs. 
As you enter, if only in imagination, the small 
adobe hut that Fernanda calls home, as you see her 
mother smoking the inevitable cigarette — and do- 
ing little else — your own heart goes out in sincerest 
pity for the dwarfed lives that God meant should 
blossom in beauty and fragrance. Is it a small 
matter thus to think God’s thoughts after Him ? 

Another word from Emerson : “ I am not so 

ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and 
the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass 
my gate.” Dear Lady Bountiful, the truest friend- 
ships of life are those made with the co-workers 
of God. If I could but show you what you miss 
by not knowing the sweet souls who are struggling, 
’mid difficulties manifold, to uplift the nation’s 
life through the slow, gradual uplift of its homes, 
you would bow your head in solemn gratitude to 
God for giving you the blessed opportunity of 
standing by their side, of really knowing about the 
work. And never again would life seem other 
than a sacred trust. 


48 


HEADLINES 



HEADLINES 

The editor was thinking — and talking. “ What 
shall I call this — ‘ Florida Fragments ’ ? Yes, 
that will do. Here are notes from Michi- 
gan — ‘ Michigan Moanings — Mutterings — Me- 
anderings ’ ? Well, hardly. There is nothing 
mournful or doubtful about the Peninsular 
State. Curious conundrums, these headlines. 
Sometimes I can write an article easier than I 
can find a suitable title for it. Mary,” and the 
editor turned to his wife, “give me a heading 
for this stuff from Michigan.” 

A merry laugh greeted the appeal, and the 
words, “ Thank you, my dear, that is just what I 
wanted.” 

“ What under the sun ! ” cried the editor. 
“What have the headlines of the Globe County 
Journal to do with your home missionary work 
— for of course that is what you are getting at ? ” 

“ Of course. Aren’t you glad your wife knows 
where she is ‘at’? It’s a paper for the district 
convention, and I hadn’t an idea about it till you 
spoke.” 

“Worse and worse,” replied her husband. 
“Do give me a synopsis of the idea.” 


HEADLINES 


“ Fm not sure that I can. It isn’t worked out 
yet, but — why, lots of people read the paper, or 
much of it, by the headlines. If those attract 
them, they go through the entire article. If 
they do not promise anything interesting, they 
go on to the next. So I’m going to write about 
the headlines we put into our lives. There’s good 
Pauline authority for my figure — ‘Ye are our 
epistles, known and read of all men.’ 

“Now I know a woman — I won’t call any 
names, but nobody would ever dream she was in- 
terested in home missionary work. She is, in a 
way. She comes to the meetings quite regularly 
and gives her dollar a year, but she never takes 
any part, or asks any questions, or looks a bit 
enthusiastic. Her headline is utterly unevent- 
ful, something like ‘Notes,’ without the least 
intimation that anything worth reading fol- 
lows. 

“Then there is Mrs. X. Why, she just lives 
and breathes missionary work. You are not in 
her presence five minutes without discovering 
where her interests lie. She has the story of her 
work at her finger-tips, but you never think of 
her as obtrusive. Her headlines run, ‘Latest 
returns ! Important news ! ’ Of course people 
respond to such an announcement. 

“Mrs. K. is of a different make-up. Her way 
is just as valuable to the work as that of Mrs. X. 


50 


HEADLINES 


Her devotion to the cause is just as real, but not 
quite so obviously on the surface. She can talk 
upon almost any subject, and talk well, but be- 
fore she is through she is pretty sure to get in 
her quiet little word about home mission work. 
She has just been on a trip to Porto Rico, and 
her descriptions of the island and its people are 
delightful. She was invited to speak about it 
before the Woman’s Club the other day, and 
everybody expected a treat. They had it, too, 
but the very best thing in her whole talk was the 
account of a day spent with our deaconess in San 
Juan. I don’t believe there was a woman there 
who didn’t want to help that work along when 
she was through. I know more than one slipped 
money into her hand for it, though she hadn’t 
said a word about contributions. 

“ The Club never would have asked her to 
come for a missionary talk, but they got it just 
the same, and enjoyed it, too. It was like your 
headlines that start off on one theme and end 
up with an entirely different one — headlines with 
a snapper, so to speak. Mrs. K. always has a 
home missionary snapper. 

“The moral? Why, wouldn’t your paper look 
very funny if it had no headlines? And since 
all papers and all lives have headlines, isn’t it 
quite worth while to think about what they shall 
be?” 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 51 


The editor kissed his wife and turned to his 
desk without a word. He knew what her head- 
lines were — the blessed little woman — he was not 
so sure about his own. 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 

“How many are there?” 

“In the Circle? Just six of us — seven, in- 
cluding Miss Minard. She sort of directs us, 
you know. It began with our Sunday-school 
class, but we let in Grace Forest because she’s 
with us in everything else.” 

“And you’re pining for something to do?” 

“Well, not exactly that, auntie, but for ideas. 
We’ve been dressing dolls for Christmas, and 
making things for girls in the industrial schools 
till we’re — well, sort o’ tired, I guess, and want 
something new. Miss Minard asked us to think 
it over, but I haven’t a single ‘ think’ in me, so 
you’ll have to be my good angel and help me 
out.” 

“ Why not adopt a member ? ” 

“ Of the Circle ? That sounds nice. Who is 
it? You?” 

“Ho, though I should be very much compli- 


52 THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 


mented if you asked me to join. But I was 
thinking of a girl of about your own age whom 
I met while I was visiting in Nebraska once on 
a time. Her father was a minister away out 
there on the frontier, where there was precious 
little money, and not much to make life enjoy- 
able. But there was work to be done for the 
Master — plenty of it — and minister and family 
were not only willing, but also glad that they 
could do it. 

“I think that Ellen was the bravest girl I 
ever saw. She expected to attend school some 
twenty miles away from home the winter after 
I was there, and you can’t imagine how she was 
‘ lotting/ as you girls say, on going. But crops 
failed — the old story out there — and the little 
money they had saved to send her to school had 
to be taken for bread, without much butter, and 
Ellen stayed at home through another long 
Nebraska winter — how long you have little 
idea. 

“Did she grieve over it? Never when her 
father and mother could know. Her father told 
me afterward that she was the sunshine of the 
home all through the cold, stormy season, and 
never by word or look let them know how disap- 
pointed she was. But after she went away — for 
God had something better for her than earthly 
schooling — they found a little brown paper book 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 53 


among her few treasures, and in it, after notes 
that told of her happiness in the prospect of 
going to school, and what she hoped and meant 
to do in the world, there was a page spotted as 
if water-drops had splashed on it — and just these 
words : One more chance to be brave — but oh, I 
did want to go/ ” 

There were “ water-drops ” in the eyes of 
Elinor Tennys as she listened to the story. 
Brushing them away, she said, softly, “I didn’t 
know there were such girls. Aunt May. Where 
can we find one? And will you tell the other 
girls, so they’ll want to adopt her, too?” 

Harvest Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, 
a day to make one wish to help everything and 
everybody, because of sheer, overflowing thank- 
fulness. It was natural that Elinor should tell 
the story of the prairie girl to her friends in the 
Sunday-school class, though, she added, “ I can’t 
half tell it, girls — you must hear it as Aunt May 
says it.” But five pairs of eyes flashed questions 
and replies to each other, in the old wireless 
telegraphy whose first stations were in the garden 
of Eden, when the superintendent said: 

“ I have here the descriptions of the families 
to whom the teachers propose that Christmas 
boxes be sent from our school. The first one is 
in North Dakota — a minister with five children. 


54 THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 


living in a sod house, with no church but his 
own in a radius of ten miles around. The oldest 
child is a girl of fifteen; then come two boys of 
twelve and ten, a girl of eight, and a baby. We 
have thought that perhaps some of the classes 
would like to provide Christmas cheer for the 
children near their own age.” 

And then and there Elinor spoke “ right out 
in meeting ” — she told the superintendent after- 
ward that she just couldn’t help it — and said, 
“ Oh, we’ll take the oldest girl ; won’t we, girls ? ” 
And every one of them said “ Yes ” right out 
loud. 

Monday was Circle night, and the girls were 
invited to Elinor’s home, with her Aunt May as 
honored guest. They chattered as only girls can 
chatter when hearts are touched and eager to 
help. 

“ Must we send clothes, Miss Raymond ? ” 
asked Belle Foster. “ Of course they’re nice, 
and I s’pose she needs them, but seems to me if I 
lived away out there and some girls were going 
to send me something I’d like to have it more 
like what they would have at Christmas — pretty 
things, you know, or books — not everything real 
useful.” 

“ Can’t we do both?” asked Elinor. “Mr. 
Farwell has her measures, and they are just like 
mine, and yours and mine are the same. Belle. 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 55 


Mamma says I may send my last winter’s cloak. 
It’s good enough for me to wear, but this reckless 
auntie of mine has brought me a new one, so 
I don’t need it.” 

“ I’d like to send her a hat,” said Kate 
Williams. 

“ And I’ll send gloves — some real warm ones,” 
added Charlotte Kean. 

“ There, Miss Raymond, you see,” cried Belle, 
“ she’ll have clothes enough, especially as I know 
some of the mothers are going to look out for 
her, too. So mayn’t I send some real ‘frivoly’ 
things — a scarf for her bureau, if she has one, 
and a pincushion. I don’t mean fussy ones, but 
pretty. Then, of course, she’d like hair and neck 
ribbons. We never get enough of those, you 
know. Don’t you think that would be nice, Miss 
Raymond ? ” 

“ I think it would be very nice, Belle. And 
if you’ll let me I’d like to help you ‘ frivol’ by 
sending a package of the Perry Pictures. Many 
of them, you know, are fine reproductions of 
famous pictures, or from photographs of build- 
ings and places and people that we all like to 
know about.” 

“ Splendid ! ” came in chorus from the girls, 
and Elinor added, “And if you don’t mind, 
auntie, I wish you’d tell her that I’ve seen a good 
many of the places and paintings, and if she’ll 


56 THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 


let me know what specially interests her Fll be 
glad to write a letter about them.” 

“ Oh, Nell, that’s fine! ” cried the girls, as Miss 
Raymond smiled a happy consent to the plan that 
meant the expenditure of a little time. Money 
is often much easier to give — or we think it is. 

Never was there more fun over a missionary 
box! The Circle had a special meeting for pack- 
ing its share, and if a phonograph could only 
have caught the merry laughter and gay com- 
ments as one thing after another was added, and 
then transported the same to the Dakota home, 
it would have been a source of unbounded won- 
der. But it could not have given more pleasure 
than did the contents of the box that a good- 
natured farmer brought to the door on Christ- 
mas morning. 

“ Mornin’, parson! Th’ agent over to the 
railroad said maybe you’d like this to-day, and 
asked me to bring it along. Looks as if ’twere 
chuck full of Christmas.” 

• • • • • 

"Oh, girls, there’s a letter! It came last 
evening, and Aunt May won’t let me read it till 
you come. She says it belongs to all the Circle, 
so be sure to come to-night ! ” 

No need to ask where the letter came from, or 
to urge the girls to be prompt at the Circle meet- 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 57 


ing that night. They had been eagerly watching 
for a letter with a Dakota postmark almost from 
the day the expressman took away the box 
freighted with so much of love and cheer. They 
came early, and perched on cushions or snuggled 
down on the rug before the open fire, each set- 
tling herself cozily and comfortably to hear the 
letter from the new friend: 

“Dear Miss Raymond, and Dear Girls: How did 
you come to do it? What made you think of it? It is 
all so beautiful! I can hardly write about it. I’m 
going to leave the telling of the rest of the story to 
mamma, and just write you about my own personal 
share. 

“Please think that you see me writing by a kero- 
sene lamp, in a sod house, with the snow outside piled 
almost to the roof, and the wind whistling around as 
if it would find its way in, in spite of us. But it can’t 
find a crack or a hole, and I am snug and cozy. I have 
dressed up, too, for I am going visiting, to meet some 
new friends whom I seem to have known for a long 
time. I have on a blue cashmere dress — how did you 
know blue was my color, Miss Raymond? — and the 
daintiest white apron. That Grace will recognize. 
Can you guess, Belle, who embroidered the pretty 
collar and tie, and would Florence, I wonder, remem- 
ber the handkerchief tucked into my belt? How cute, 
Elinor, to put your initials inside of the leather belt. 
Somehow it seems as if you were at my side when I 
wear it. 

“ The blue hair ribbon just matches the dress, May, 
and makes me feel so fine I am afraid I shall be 


58 THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 


proud. And I’m writing with Kate’s pen, on Char- 
lotte’s lovely paper that seems too pretty to use, and 
— but here I am rattling on as if I knew you all and 
‘belonged.’ You’ll have to excuse me this once, for 
I’m too happy to be proper. I can only say one great 
big * Thank you ’ that is meant for all of you together 
and for each of you, as well. 

“ You ask me to tell what I have done with the pic- 
tures, but my letter will be quite too long if I try to 
tell it all. Three of them I have put where I can see 
them when I waken in the morning — the lovely Ma- 
donna, the ocean glimpse, and the view on the Rhine. 
I look at them and imagine I am really seeing the 
places and the painting. With the others I’m going to 
have a picture evening. You see, the young people 
’round us — that means anywhere from five to ten 
miles away — have very little chance to see and hear 
about things. We’ll look at the pictures, and talk 
about them, and, though there’ll be a lot we do not 
know about most of them, it will be worth something 
to find that out, and to think that we can look it up 
some time, in the great, beautiful future. I can’t ask 
you to do one thing more for me, in spite of your 
tempting offer, but if you do have time to write me a 
little bit about any of the pictures it would be such a 
help. And do you know, those pictures are going to 
get our young folks into Sunday-school! They really 
are, for father’ll put in a word about the school, and 
I’m sure they’ll come. 

“ I can’t write half what I want to this time. May 
I come for another chat? You see the postage stamps 
tucked away in that cunning little box are so tempt- 
ing. And they seem to belong to you. 

“ Very gratefully yours, 

“ Margaret Randolph.” 


THEIR ADOPTED MEMBER 59 


"Miss President ” — it was Belle’s voice that 
broke the little hush following the reading of the 
letter — " I move that Margaret Randolph be 
made an adopted member and Miss Raymond an 
honorary member of our Circle.” The motion 
was seconded and carried quicker than one can 
write it, and the next mail to the West bore not 
only descriptions of the pictures, but full assur- 
ances that the new member need never try to be 
"proper” with the other members of the Circle. 

I wish I could tell you more of the true story 
of which this is a part — of the magazines that 
found their weekly way to that prairie home; of 
the letter party that brightened a birthday ; of 
the love and friendship that came to one girl 
like a glimpse of heaven, and was no less a bless- 
ing to other girls who had known little of sac- 
rifice or deprivation. 

Out West, in that dim, mysterious region we 
vaguely know as "the frontier,” there are other 
girls who might be adopted by other classes and 
other Circles. Have you an adopted member? 
If not, the girls of the Home Missionary Circle 

of E are sorry for you, for they know 

what you are missing. 


60 


GIRLS AND GIRLS 


GIRLS AND GIRLS 

“ Good-by ! ” The words were spoken in a low, 
caressing tone, as if the love of the beautiful blue 
waves had become a part of the speaker’s life. 
“ The last Sunday of rest,” she added. “ A week 
from to-day the Junior meeting and my Sunday- 
school class.” 

“ Why, you’ve never told me a word about your 
Sunday-school class,” said her companion. 

“ Haven’t I? Well, I have one — but I ought 
not to have it.” 

“ Why not ? I should say you were just the one 
for a Sunday-school teacher,” replied her friend. 
They were from the neighboring city, the girl with 
the unmistakable air of up-to-dateness, and the 
quiet little deaconess spending her brief time of 
vacation in the same cottage by the sea. They 
had drifted together almost unconsciously. The 
friendship had stopped far short of intimacy, yet 
each sought the other at the hour for a twilight 
stroll on the beach or a morning dip in the white 
surf, and many a pleasant chat they had had in a 
cosy corner of the piazza. 

"I do like teaching,” was the somewhat unex- 


GIRLS AND GIRLS 


61 


pected response to the question of the deaconess, 
“ but the results are so unsatisfactory that I fear 
I make a mistake in trying it. The truth is, I 
can’t seem to get my girls out of a rut. They are 
dear girls, from good families — sometimes I think 
that’s the trouble with them — they are so emin- 
ently respectable that they can’t be moved. They 
come regularly, they know something about the 
lesson, and seem interested while it’s going on, but 
it all seems to end there. I can’t see that all the 
teaching really affects their lives, though every one 
of the six is a church member.” 

“ Six, did you say ? That’s just the number in 
my class, and mine are dear girls, too. But I 
wonder how you would like them,” added the dea- 
coness thoughtfully. 

“Why shouldn’t I like them? Tell me about 
them.” 

“ Well, two of them are artificial flower-makers, 
who work anywhere from eight to ten hours a day, 
for eight dollars a week, during six months of the 
year. How they manage to live through the other 
six months, only God knows. The most fortunate 
girl of the half-dozen is a silk-weaver, who has 
work ten months in the year, and earns about ten 
dollars a week. The others support themselves 
and help to support their families on wages that 
average five dollars a week.” 

“ But, Miss Melville, how do they do it ? Where 


62 


GIRLS AND GIRLS 


do they live? I should think they’d be hungry 
and cross all the time. How can you stand it to 
he with them ? Talk of teaching them ! I should 
feel as if I must turn my pocket inside out every 
time I saw them.” 

A merry laugh was Miss Melville’s first response. 
Then, seeing that her friend was really in earnest, 
she said, “Excuse me, my dear, but the thought 
of considering my girls paupers was too funny. 
You’d say so if you knew them. They are bright, 
warm-hearted, self-respecting Christian girls. 
All they ask is the chance to work for themselves 
and for others, the chance to which every man 
and woman has a right. They live — to take your 
questions backward — on the east side of the city, 
and attend the Avenue A mission of Dr. M.’s 
church. How they live and help others on what 
they earn. I cannot tell you. I know I should 
resent it if a millionaire friend (supposing I had 
one) should quiz me on my system of personal 
economics, and I believe they would feel as I do, 
so I have asked no questions. But I tell you 
frankly that my greatest wish just now is to be 
able to give them some knowledge of real home- 
life and girl-life on a higher scale than their own. 
But I can’t see my way clear to do it.” 

“ See here,” cried her friend, springing to her 
feet, “ why isn’t that just the thing for my girls ? 
I’ve been longing for something to rouse them, 


GIRLS AND GIRLS 


and I believe that’s why we came to know each 
other. Now listen,” and she posed herself on the 
piazza railing as a more appropriate seat than the 
easy chair, for rapid talk. “ We’ll begin at home. 
I’ll ask my girls to come, and you’ll come, and 
you’ll tell them about your girls ; then I’ll propose 
that we get acquainted with them. I know my 
girls — they’ll do it, and do it just right too, not 
like giving charity, but as real friends. 

“ We’ll have little evenings together at the dif- 
ferent houses, and my girls will get a great deal 
more than they’ll give. It’s exactly what they 
need, only I didn’t know it before.” 

There is no room for the rest of the story. How 
the girls learned to know and love and trust each 
other, how the Christmas tide brought special joy 
to each, how better work and better pay were 
found for some of the wage-earners, and how their 
lives were made happier and truer by the mutual 
helpfulness — is it not all written in the book of 
the Recording Angel? 


L 


64 DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 


DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 

It was hot down in Long Alley. The late 
spring had rushed into summer with a bound, 
and the last days of May were as stifling as those 
of July and August ought to be. The Alley ran 
east and west, and that permitted the sun to send 
long lines of heat couriers through it without 
any resisting force to turn them back. No relief 
was possible without demolishing the tall build- 
ings that shut off the river breezes and shut in 
the noisome smells and the general uncomfort- 
ableness. 

“ Seems to me ’zif I couldn’t stand it,” 
moaned Mother Barnum as she rocked slowly to 
and fro in the little old chair by the window. 
“Jest seems ’zif I couldn’t nohow! Dear, dear, 
if I wuz only back to Tompkinsville ! I know 
what they’ll be doin’ thar. Thar’ll be a band, 
an’ a percession, an’ flowers, an’ speeches, an’ all 
the graves’ll hev flags on ’em, an’ ” — and here the 
tremulous old voice broke into sobs with which 
were mingled the words, “Jim — my baby Jim — 
’n p’raps they’ll fergit him — ’n won’t put no 


DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 65 


flag ner no flowers — cause it’s way off in the 
corner — oh, dear ! ” and the words became in- 
articulate as Mother Barnum sobbed herself into 
an uneasy doze. 

It was hard — to come to the city after a life- 
time spent in God’s free country air — to come 
because all were gone at home, and only Tom 
was left of all her kith and kin. It had not been 
so bad when she first came to Tom’s house. They 
had lived where the windows looked out on a bit 
of greenery, and the breezes now and then told 
them that God had not forgotten the world. But 
sickness and out-of-work-ness, and the troubles 
that always follow in the train of these two ene- 
mies of the poor, had given a downward start, 
and the result was Long Alley, and an aching 
heart that lived over the Memorial Days of the 
past. 

It was hot on Dale Avenue — at least they 
called it so, those bright young girls in their cool 
muslins and lawns, dainty with lace and ribbons. 
“ Almost too hot to think,” sighed Nell Fair- 
bank as she waved a palmleaf fan lazily across 
her face. 

“ That’s so, Nell, but we’re bound to think, for 
Ray has a plan,” responded Floy Foster. 

“ Oh, if it’s one of Ray’s plans that’s called this 
extra meeting, I yield to the inevitable. I know 


66 DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 

her of old. Only do give me another glass of that 
lemonade, just to fortify myself for the attack. 
Now, Ray, let’s hear,” as the girls, following her 
example, settled themselves comfortably and pre- 
pared to listen — who could help doing so when 
Ray “ had the floor ” ? 

"Why, I haven’t much of a plan, girls,” said 
Ray, smiling. “ I’m looking to you for that. I’ve 
only found a need. I went with the deaconess 
down into Long Alley yesterday. Yes, I know,” 
as a chorused groan rose from her audience. “ It 
was dreadful. But it is worse to live in it. And 
one of the saddest things I found there was not 
the suffering babies and mothers, though they are 
bad enough. But, girls, they know in Long Alley 
that Decoration Day is coming.” 

The girls looked puzzled. What if they did? 
Didn’t Decoration Day come every year? What 
difference could it possibly make to the poor folks 
down in Long Alley? 

Ray went on with her story. “ Dear old 
Mother Barnum,” she said, with a little tremor in 
her voice, “ the patient old soul, couldn’t keep the 
tears away when she told me of her son Jim who 
was killed in the Spanish War, and whose grave is 
in a corner of the cemetery in the little village 
where they used to live. ‘ I’m afeared they won’t 
find it,’ she sobbed, ‘ an’ thar won’t be so much as 
a flag on it, an’ I alius used ter hev it kivered with 


DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 67 

flowers — laylocks an’ pinies, the kinds Jim used ter 
love/ 

“ Then there was Phil, the lame newsboy, you 
know. I stopped to buy a paper of him, and he 
said, ‘Miss Ray, can yer tell me — duz they give 
away any flowers anywhere now ? ’Cause, yer see, 
me father was a soldier an* thar oughter be some 
flowers on his grave if he did die jest las’ year. 
He was as brave as any of ’em/ 

“ ‘ What would you do with flowers if you had 
them?’ I asked. 

“ ‘ Sure, an’ I’d piffc them on his grave wid me 
two hands/ he said. 

“ ‘ Why, you couldn’t walk so far as that, Phil,’ 
I answered. ‘It’s more than three miles to the 
cemetery.’ 

“‘I knows it, ma’am, but I’d try it fer me 
father’s sake,’ was his answer. 

“ Then I saw Mrs. Raymond, and do you know, 
girls, her Fred has enlisted. ‘I minds me of 
Decoration Day, Miss,’ she said, ‘an’ I thinks o’ 
my boy, an’ it alius seems ter me ’zif the live 
soldiers oughter hev some flowers ’z well as the 
dead ones.’ 

“‘Why, Mrs. Raymond,’ I said, ‘what made 
Fred enlist ? He ought to take care of you.’ You 
should have seen the look that came into her 
wrinkled old face. ‘’Twas the recruitin’ officer, 
honey,’ she said, ‘that told him he was a likely 


68 DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 


lad, and his country wanted him. An’ indeed, Miss 
Ray, I wouldn’t hev him stay ter home if that’s 
so. It’s this blessed country that’s given a home 
ter me an’ mine fer many a year, that’s a-callin’ 
him. An’ ef it needs him I haven’t a word ter 
say agin it.’ Yes, I know what you think,” added 
Ray as a smile went around the group. “ Of 
course it’s a piece of restlessness and recklessness 
on Fred’s part, but with his dear old mother it’s 
true patriotism. But that wasn’t all she said. ‘ I 
minds me, too,’ she went on, ‘ that like as not Fred 
won’t never hev ter go inter any fightin’, an’ so 
I’ve bin thinkin’ an’ thinkin’, an’ I tells yer, Miss 
Ray, it jest comes ter me that thar’s other sorts o’ 
soldiers — live ones, jest’s I said — who’d or ter hev 
flowers for their own selves. Thar’s Miss Kate, 
now — bless her white bonnet-strings that’s jes’ like 
a picter frame for her face — don’t she fight ’gainst 
a lot of thin’s every day of her life — dirt an’ smells 
an’ cross folks, an’ dark stairs an’ thin’s — oh, I 
knows all about it, if I does live in it meself ’cause 
I can’t help meself — an’ she alluz as brave an’ 
bright as the sunshine. I tells yer I wisht I hed 
a whole lot o’ flowers fer her this day when the 
soldiers hev ’em on their graves, an’ I’d tell her 
she wa’n’t ter give one of ’em away, too.’ ” 

No one spoke for a little while. They all loved 
the sweet-faced deaconess who went in and out 
among them, a messenger between them and that 


DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 69 


other, the submerged world, of which they knew 
so little by practical experience. They had helped 
her to help others, many a time. Somehow, it 
seemed to them now, they had forgotten that she, 
too, needed personal refreshment and help now and 
then. And then there were those graves — Jim’s 
and Phil’s father’s — it wasn’t Home Missionary 
work, of course, so they couldn’t fall back on their 
treasury, but 

It was Clare who broke the silence — golden- 
haired Clare, with eyes like the blue of her South- 
ern skies. “ There isn’t time for real committee- 
work, girls; but I’ll be a committee of one to look 
after Mother Barnum. It’s too far to take her 
back to the little village where Jim is buried, but 
the express goes there, and there shall be flowers 
on Jim’s grave on Decoration Day, and his old 
mother shall put them into the box and cry over 
them and talk about Jim all she pleases. Yes,” 
and the voice grew lower, “ there shall be a flag on 
Jim’s grave, too — the same dear flag that floats 
over my father out in the Philippines.” 

There were tears in other eyes as Clare’s voice 
failed her. Then Nell said, 

“ I’ll look after Phil. He shall have the flowers, 
and he’ll not need to walk to the cemetery on 
Decoration Day, either.” 

“ And Miss Kate,” said Floy ; “ what is it, Ray ? 
It’s easy to see you have it all planned.” 


70 DECORATION DAY BY PROXY 


“Well,” answered Kate, “of course we’ll put 
our hands into our pockets and take out the money 
for the flowers. But wouldn’t it be a nice thing 
to take them down to Mrs. Raymond’s, because she 
thought of it, and have her ask the ones she wants 
to, to help her arrange them, and just leave them 
to give the flowers to the deaconess in the way they 
like best? They’ll tell her that they’re her very 
own, and that she mustn’t give one of them away, 
and ” 

“ Good ! ” interrupted Floy. “ But I move to 
amend by sending to her that morning, before she 
starts out, a silk flag for her room, and a big box 
of flowers that she can give away, for you know 
she’ll want to do that.” 

Amid general approval the suggestions were 
adopted. And that is how a group of Home Mis- 
sion girls kept Decoration Day by proxy. 


WHAT WAS THE USE? 


71 



WHAT WAS THE USE? 

“What's the use?” The minister’s wife 
wrinkled her forehead and twisted her fingers in 
an odd little way she had when half discouraged 
and two-thirds ready to give up. 

“What’s the use, Harry?” she repeated. 
“ Listen ! At precisely half-past two o’clock 
your wife will be in the ladies’ parlor, ready for 
the home missionary meeting — and nobody else. 
She will fumble with her papers and books for 
fifteen minutes, and then Sister Brown will stroll 
carelessly in, moving as if she didn’t really know 
if she was coming there or going to some other 
place. At three o’clock, when we’ve just finished 
the weather and the general church gossip, Sister 
Green will bustle in with, ‘ Oh, I know I’m late, 
but you must excuse me! I had so much to do. 
Why, you haven’t begun yet? Dear me! Next 
time I’ll wait till half-past three. I didn’t any- 
way know how to get away this afternoon, but I 
knew you’d be disappointed, Mis’ Foster, if I 
didn’t come/ Then we shall take a hasty run 
over the weather and the gossip again, and her 
three-year-old Frank will be making life miser- 


72 


WHAT WAS THE USE? 


able for all concerned — that child absolutely 
cannot keep still — while Sister Green is getting 
seated and composed. By the time we reach 
the opening hymn Mary Gray will come in from 
school. I declare, she’s the one redeeming tint 
in the whole color scheme of onr church! She 
will smile and say, “ Oh, I am so glad you’re not 
all through, for now I can get some of the meet- 
ing.’ Then we shall go through the motions in 
the same old way just as we did last month, and 
the month before that, and three months ago. 
We’ll have the minutes, and Mary will read 
something from the Herald, and Sister Brown 
will waken from her brown study in time to 
‘move we adjourn.’ What is the use of it all?” 

“ Precious little, I should say,” returned the 
minister, gravely. 

“ Then you think just as I do, that we’d better 
give it up — don’t you?” The question was an 
afterthought, called forth by a curious look that 
came into the dark eyes of the listener. 

There was a perceptible pause before the 
answer came. When it did it was a surprise: 

“ I think, dear, there is a better way than 
doing things ‘ just as they’ve always been done.’ 
You and I must study that part of it together. 
But you have reminded me of a story of my boy- 
hood that I am sure I have never told you. It 
isn’t much of a story, either, but perhaps it will 


WHAT WAS THE USE? 


73 


help to answer your question. When I was a 
little shaver, about the size of Frank Green, my 
mother used to take me to missionary meetings 
because there was no one with whom she could 
leave me. I suppose I was as restless as a boy 
could be, and I have no doubt I made life miser- 
able for more than one of the good women who 
kept alive the little spark of missionary zeal in 
that country church. I played around, winding 
my way in and out among the old settees — I can 
see them now — having a fine game of hide-and- 
seek all by myself, and all unconscious, even to 
myself, of what was going on. I cannot to this 
day remember a single thing that was said or 
done at one of those meetings. I only know that 
even as a boy of three I felt that, somehow, they 
had to do with great questions — questions that I 
could not understand, but that God knew all 
about, and I was certain that my mother was 
helping Him to make the problems come out all 
right. I know now that in those missionary 
meetings, small, uninteresting as they very likely 
were, there came to be as a part of my very self 
the conviction that when I was grown up I, 
too, must have a share in the work of helping 
God. 

“ Dear, I honestly believe that I am a minister 
of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to-day be- 
cause my mother never missed one of those mis- 


74 MRS. WINN’S WAY 

sionary meetings, nor failed to take me with 
her.” 

The minister’s wife could not have spoken if 
she had tried. There was a soft caress of hand 
and lip, and then she went to talk it over with 
the Lord. And when she started for the mis- 
sionary meeting that afternoon her face shone 
with the light that comes only from being on the 
Mount, with the Master. 



MRS. WINN’S WAY 

It lay on the table waiting for a leisure moment, 
and I wondered if the fair white paper and clear 
type were not so imbued with the spirit that, as 
I knew so well, thrilled in every word, that they, 
too, were impatient for the time to come when I 
could open the pages and read their delightful 
contents. It was morning, and I am a busy 
house-mother. There was no time for real read- 
ing then. But I could gain inspiration that 
would help me in washing dishes and making 
bread by a glance now and then at my new mis- 
sionary paper. 

Between sink and stove my eye rested on its 
heading — the flag of my country, accompanied 


MRS. WINN’S WAY 


75 


by the legend, “ For the love of Christ and in 
His name.” And I was a part of it all! The 
folds of that blessed flag tossed in the wind for 
me! And in the work for which that wonderful 
motto stood I had a part! Oh, I was so thank- 
ful, so glad, that in the ministries “for the love 
of Christ and in His name” I had a share. 

My chance came at last — the few minutes that 
every housekeeper knows when she can rest her 
weary feet for a brief space, and rest her brain 
at the same time by giving it something new to 
think about. Then I opened my paper. 

Did you never when a small child — at the 
Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps — feel that you 
must taste a bit of everything on your plate be- 
fore really beginning to eat, with a half fear that 
some of the good things would slip away before 
you came to them in regular order? Something 
of that old childish difficulty comes to me when- 
ever I open the tempting pages of my missionary 
paper. And this time, as I turned the leaves 
rapidly — for my time was short — there seemed 
an unusually abundant feast of good things. 

“Alaska” — why, our society was just sending 
a barrel to the missionary Home there. That 
article must be read without delay, for we might 
need its information before starting the barrel! 
“Mormonism” — only yesterday I had read that 
missionaries of that dreadful faith were in our 


76 


MRS. WINN’S WAY 


very city, and seeking a chance to speak in onr 
church prayer-meetings. I must know all I 
could on that subject. 

“ Porto Rico ” — well, I thought there was 
work enough to do here at home, so I didn’t care 
much about that, even if it did belong to the 
United States. And I usually skipped the 
deaconess part — somehow, I hadn’t got up much 
interest in deaconess work. The children said, 
“ Mother just skims the paper all over, and then 
goes back and reads a little piece here and a little 
piece there.” So one day I “ dared” them to 
examine me on it, and they said I “ passed with 
100 per cent.,” so I thought my way was a pretty 
good one, after all. 

Before I had “ skimmed ” this number it was 
time to get dinner, then the boys came home from 
school, and what with their questions and talk, 
I never thought of the paper till the oldest one 
said: 

“ Oh, where do you suppose Frank has gone ? ” 

Frank is my nephew, a fine young fellow, in the 
regular army. He expected to be sent to Manila, 
and we had all been mourning about his going 
so far away. 

“He’s gone to Porto Rico,” continued Clar- 
ence, without waiting for a reply to his question, 
“and Aunt May’s had a letter from him. She’s 
going to bring it over this afternoon. Say, I’d 


MRS. WINN’S WAY 


77 


like to be a soldier — you go to lots of places and 
see lots of sights.” 

The conversation drifted away from Porto 
Rico, and I did not think of the island again till 
my sister came with the letter. And this is what 
Frank wrote, 

“ Dear Mother : As you know, we started under 
sealed orders, and most of us thought we were going 
to South America — down to the Isthmus, I mean — if 
not to the Philippines. But instead we’re in Porto 
Rico, and shall have a fine place for the winter. But 
I’m not going to take the few minutes I have before 
the mail closes to describe the island, for I’ve some- 
think more important to write about. I must cut it 
short, too, so I’ll just say that two of those deacon- 
esses you think so much of are down here at work. 
They held a prayer-meeting the other night, and chum 
and I strolled in. Why, mother, I never went to such 
a meeting! There wasn’t a bit of sentiment about it, 
but just plain, practical common sense. It made a 
fellow ashamed that he hadn’t enlisted in the army 
of the Lord Jesus long before — especially when there’d 
been a recruiting station right in his home all his 
life. So I just gave in that night, and said I’d fight 
in that army as long as I lived. 

“ There, mother, I can hear you say, ‘ Those blessed 
women ! ’ and I say so, too, for they led me to Jesus. 
Go ahead with your missionary work and your dea- 
coness work! They’ve led your boy to Christ, and 
now he’s going to work for other mothers’ boys.” 


That was the letter — but perhaps we didn’t 


78 


STRATEGIC POINTS 


cry over it! And all of a sudden I remembered 
what Fd said about Porto Rico and the deaconess 
part of my missionary paper. Why, I could 
hardly wait for the chance to read those very 
things. I tell you, it makes all the difference in 
the world when it’s your very own you’re reading 
about. I felt then as if every deaconess was my 
personal friend, and I wanted to know all about 
what they were doing for “ other mothers’ ” boys 
and girls. 

“ Mother doesn’t do so much skimming nowa- 
days,” said my daughter this morning. “ She 
reads every word of that paper, and then sighs 
for more worlds — of printer’s ink — to con- 
quer.’ It’s a pretty good way, though,” she 
added, “ to really read if you’re going to do it 
at all.” 



STRATEGIC POINTS 

Porto Rico is one of them, and with the build- 
ing of the Panama Canal it will become still more 
important. Through that canal will pass a large 
proportion of the commerce of the world, the 
“ open door ” in China and the American posses- 
sion of the Philippines vastly increasing the 
amount of traffic between the Atlantic and the 


STRATEGIC POINTS 


79 


Pacific. On this highway, Porto Rican seaports 
will be the inevitable stations for coaling and 
other needs. They must be pre-empted for Christ 
and a Christian civilization. 

More and more, with the drawing together of 
nations, the Spanish-speaking people of North 
and South America are coming in touch with the 
United States. The two continents are the only 
great world masses in which the mountain ranges 
run from north to south, and that fact indicates a 
tremendous responsibility for missionary work. 
How shall the needs of these regions, fast opening 
up to twentieth-century civilization, be met ? The 
church, if awake to its opportunity, will push the 
Christian training of the Spanish-speaking people 
now within its reach, for the sake not only of the 
present but of the future. 

Sometimes there is long and weary seed-sowing 
and patient cultivation before any harvest ap- 
pears. At other times it is given to the workers 
to see results much more quickly. It would seem 
as if work on the hot, arid plains of New Mexico 
and Arizona must be almost the extreme test of 
courage. But one missionary reports great 
changes in New Mexico in the two years since she 
went to her post. Stoves have been put into the 
homes, superseding the old and inconvenient fire- 
places; wooden floors are taking the place of mud 
floors that required frequent renewal through the 


80 


STRATEGIC POINTS 


hard work of the women of the household, and 
even sewing machines are finding their way into 
the adobe homes. While these may not be alto- 
gether the direct result of missionary labors, the 
connection is very close between the opened vision 
that sees something better for hand and brain 
than it has known, and that other vision that dis- 
covers a new spiritual horizon. 

“ Oh B it is great riches to be able to read,” 
said a poor Mexican woman, the tears streaming 
down her face as she spoke. An old Mexican 
lay dying when the news came to him of the 
opening of a school in which his people could 
be taught. Not venturing to ask the mission- 
aries to come to him, he cried, “ Carry me to the 
corner of the road, that I may see the teachers.” 
They are waiting on every “ corner,” along 
every highway, the sick and the dying — waiting 
for the teaching that only Christian America 
can give. Shall we be true to our trust, or shall 
they die unheeded and unblessed? 

Statesmen now admit that Secretary Seward 
was right when he prophesied that the next gen- 
eration would pronounce the purchase of Alaska 
the most important act of the administration in 
which he was Secretary of State. Instead of 
being a region of perpetual ice and snow, the 
peninsula contains large areas of excellent farm- 
ing land, with room enough thereon for three 


STRATEGIC POINTS 


81 


million people. Add to the agricultural re- 
sources the gold deposits and the fisheries, and 
the importance of the territory becomes self-evi- 
dent. 

Wireless telegraph stations and cable con- 
nections are rapidly bringing Alaska into touch 
with the rest of the world. This means much 
to miners and whalers, and, through the conse- 
quent advance of commerce, much to Christian 
civilization. “ Across the broken piers of the 
Aleutian bridge, Russian, Slav and Anglo-Saxon 
may yet struggle for world-supremacy.” Be that 
as it may, Christianity cannot afford to neglect 
Alaska. 

Through the Japanese on our Western sea- 
board and the thousands of representatives of 
the Sunrise Kingdom in the Hawaiian Islands, 
there will come a mighty force for the regenera- 
tion of Japan and of China. Eastern Asia is 
a strategic point in Christian civilization, and 
America holds the key. Is American Christi- 
anity “sufficient unto these things” ? 


82 THE PROBLEM OF ROBERT 



THE PROBLEM OF ROBERT 

“What shall I do with Robert?” was a stand- 
ing question in the Settlement. Miss Jones asked 
it in the wood-working class, where Robert’s tools 
were never put away in orderly fashion. Miss 
Williams asked it in the Boys’ Club, where Robert 
kept the boys in his vicinity in a state of perpetual 
giggle. The drawing teachers said, “Robert has 
talent, but he won’t apply himself. He isn’t 
patient enough to work up from the beginning. 
He wants to jump to the life class at once — and 
really, he has a good deal of skill in sketching 
from life. But he is so restless that I don’t know 
what to do with him.” 

But Miss Steck had the most trouble with 
Robert — in the Sunday evening class, and the 
Tuesday night’s Crusaders’ Club. And, strange 
to say, Miss Steck was the only one of them all 
who really liked Robert, and wanted him to come, 
and missed him when he was absent. But matters 
grew so bad, Robert was such a demoralizing in- 
fluence, that at last Miss Steele’s patience gave 
way. And when one night he came to a class 
social with hair awry and hands covered with the 
dust of the street, it was too much. 


THE PROBLEM OF ROBERT 83 


“ Come here, Robert,” she said, beckoning him 
into the hall. 

The boy, who was watching a game of chess, 
obeyed slowly. But he looked up with startled 
eyes when Miss Steck said: 

“ Robert, I shall have to send you home, and 
say that you mustn't come back.” The boy stared 
at her, too surprised to speak, and she went on: 
“I've tried to be patient, but you know how you 
disturb the other boys and make it hard for me. 
And then to come to-night with such dirty hands 
and uncombed hair, to be with these other boys 
who are trying to be gentlemen! Don't you see, 
Robert ” — the intent gaze was becoming somewhat 
embarrassing — “ don't you see that we can't have 
you here because you are so careless?” 

Robert found voice at last. Looking still into 
Miss Steck's face, with eyes more steady than her 
own, he said : 

“ If I can't come to the Home, Miss Steck, I 
know where I can go — where they are always glad 
to have boys.” 

Ah, Miss Steck knew, too well, of the welcome 
from the dozen saloons in that very block, each of 
whom would give glad greeting to so promising a 
recruit for the army of sin and crime. Ho, no, 
she could not let Robert go — he must not go. 
There was rapid thinking, rapid praying in that 
hallway ; and then earnest words were spoken that 
we may not repeat. But Miss Steck won her boy. 


84 THE “ RUMMAGE ” BARREL 



THE “ RUMMAGE ” BARREL 

I 

“ Has the secretary any letters to read ? ” 

You would never have taken her for a secre- 
tary, or dreamed that such a dainty bit of pink 
and white girlhood could keep official records. 
And, indeed, she did not know much about it; 
but neither did the rest of the girls, so it mat- 
tered little — to them. 

The president asked the question at a meeting 
of the Queen Esther Circle — the first meeting 
after the long summer vacation. Not that all the 
members of the Circle had been out of town dur- 
ing the summer. As a matter of fact, very few 
of them could be away for more than the regular 
“ fortnight’s vacation,” and more than one had 
been known to mourn the dullness of the place in 
hot weather. “It’s neither sea-shore nor moun- 
tain, but just an in-between place,” Rose Sin- 
clair complained. “ There’s nothing to do but 
eat and sleep, with a sprinkling of croquet or 
lawn tennis when it isn’t too awful hot.” But 
it was the habit of Immanuel Church to close its 
avenues of out-reaching help during the summer, 
to let the needy world, for whose interests it 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 85 


diligently cared the rest of the year, run for 
three months, so to speak, on the momentum thus 
acquired. 

“ Oh, yes. Madam President, there’s a letter 
somewhere — here it is — from somebody who 
signs herself, c Supply Secretary/ Who knows 
what in the world that means ? ” 

The uninterested faces of the girls would have 
given poor encouragement to the writer of the 
letter, had she seen them. May Fremont con- 
tinued : 

“I believe you don’t know any more about 
it than I do — and that’s precious little. Well, 
here’s the letter: 

“ Secretary of the Queen Esther Circle of Im- 
manuel Church. 

“Dear Friend: Among the calls at hand, I have 
one that I think will especially interest the girls of 
your Circle. It is for a minister’s family in Wyoming, 
in which there is a girl of about your own age, Doro- 
thy by name, besides several younger children. 

“ I am especially desirous to have a good box sent 
them this fall, for the prayer of Dorothy’s heart has 
been answered in the opening of the way for her to 
attend school this winter in the nearest city — 200 
miles distant. The family resources will be taxed to 
the utmost to carry out this plan, and our supply de- 
partment should furnish Dorothy a suitable outfit. 
Then, with her assistance withdrawn, the needs of the 
home will be still greater, and we should help to meet 
these by sending things for the rest of the family. 


86 THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 


"May I rely on you for just such a box, or barrel, 
as is required? Address it to Rev. James Darling, 
Outpost, Wyoming. 

“ Please write me the Circle’s decision in the matter 
— and please ask the girls not to decide till they have 
prayed about it. 

“ Sincerely yours, 

“ (Mbs.) J. P. Wells, 

“ Supply Secretary for First District” 

“Oh, goodness!” cried Maud Jenkins, break- 
ing the moment’s hush that followed the read- 
ing. “ As if we hadn’t had enough to do to get 
ourselves ready for the winter! I worked my- 
self half to death all through the hot summer so’s 
to have something decent to wear. If anybody 
thinks I’m going to send my new gowns to that 
backwoods girl, she’s much mistaken.” 

“Why, of course not, Maud,” said the presi- 
dent. “Nobody expects anything of that sort. 
It’s only old stuff, that folks don’t want, that 
goes into missionary barrels.” 

“That’s so,” echoed Floy Jennings. “They’re 
nothing but rummage-savers, and I, for one, have 
some shirt waists that really aren’t fit to wear 
here that I’d be glad to get rid of.” 

“So have I,” “And I,” “And I,” cried one 
and another, till the secretary said, laughingly: 
“ Well, girls, Dorothy won’t lack for shirt waists, 
that’s evident. Let’s take account of stock. How 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 87 


many? ‘ Three/ ‘ two/ * one/ ‘ three ’ — how 
many, Florence? Oh, yes, ‘five,’ and ‘ three 5 and 
‘ two ’ and ‘ one ’ — twenty, if I count right. All 
cotton, I suppose. Fll start another ball rolling 
with my old sailor hat.” 

“Fll send the white chiffon one I wore last 
year. It’s mussed, but beggars mustn’t be 
choosers, and she’ll need something for a Sunday 
best.” 

“ Count another for me — after I’ve taken off 
the roses on it. They’re too lovely to give away, 
but the old hat may go.” 

“I’ll give some ribbons, if anybody will wash 
them. I haven’t time to do that,” Kate Graham 
added, a bit ashamed of her offer. 

“What’s the use?” queried Maud Sinclair. 
“ She’s got ribbons, of course. Madam Presi- 
dent, some of us have a tennis engagement at five 
o’clock. Let’s adjourn.” 

“ Oh, wait a minute, girls,” said the secretary. 
“Mrs. Wells speaks of things for the rest of the 
family. We haven’t said a word about that.” 

“ Nonsense ! ” cried Floy. “ How are we going 
to get shirts and trousers and sheets and pillow- 
cases — and napkins and tablecloths, even if they 
know how to use them? We just can’t do it.” 

“But, what shall I write Mrs. Wells?” 

“ Why, haven’t we all said what we would send 
— all but Miss Temple ? ” and the speaker turned 


88 THE “ RUMMAGE” BARREL 


to a quiet girl, who had taken no part in the dis- 
cussion. A careful observer watching her might 
have seen from time to time a flush creep from 
cheek to forehead as she listened to the chatter 
around her, and might, perhaps, have drawn cer- 
tain conclusions therefrom. But no suspicions 
were in the minds of the Queen Esther girls, who 
looked at her inquiringly as the president added: 
“ We are so glad to have you with us, Miss Tem- 
ple, and we don’t want you to feel left out in any- 
thing — not even in a rummage box.” 

“ Thank you,” was the quiet reply. “ May I 
ask if these supplies are to be packed at our next 
meeting?” 

“Why, I suppose so. Then the whole thing 
will be out of the way before Christmas. We’ll 
have that meeting in the church parlor, and if 
we bring to the janitor the things we want to 
send before then he’ll have a box, or barrel, all 
ready for us.” 

“Then, if you’ll allow me, I’ll look over my 
stock in hand before deciding,” replied Miss 
Temple. 

“Certainly,” said the president. “May, you’d 
better write Mrs. Wells that we’ll send some 
things to Dorothy, and you might add that if we 
can beg, borrow or — confiscate — any old clothes 
from our fathers or our brothers we’ll put them 
in. Now are we ready to adjourn?” 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 89 


“A question of privilege, Madam President,” 
said Miss Temple. The girls looked at her in 
amazement. They had learned to say “Madam 
President” by dint of much effort, but that one 
of their own number should actually use that 
mysterious phrase, “a question of privilege,” as 
if she understood it and was not a whit afraid of 
it — well, their respect for Miss Temple grew 
rapidly. 

“A question of privilege, Madam President. 
May I ask that the secretary read again the last 
sentence of Mrs. Wells’ letter ? ” 

“ Here it is,” cried May, without waiting for 
the president’s assent: “Please write me the 
Circle’s decision in the matter — and please ask 
the girls not to decide till they have prayed about 
it.’ ” 

“Thank you,” was Miss Temple’s only com- 
ment. But, somehow, the words of the appeal 
lingered with the girls, sounding through all the 
merry chit-chat of their separation, and louder 
than Maud’s cry of — 

“Rags, rags, old rags! 

A penny a pound for your old rags!” 

And somehow, too, there was a lack of harmony 
in the blending of the two refrains, “Rags, old 
rags ! ” and “ Pray about it, pray about it.” 


90 THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 


Margaret Temple did not play tennis that 
evening. As our Quaker friends say, a call of 
duty was “ borne in upon her.” She went di- 
rectly to her own room from the meeting of the 
Queen Esther Circle and sat down at her desk. 
Under her feet lay the bright stripes of a 
Navajo rug, a story in each thread, and the scrap- 
basket at her side was woven as only squaws have 
patience to weave. It may have been that some 
touch of the far prairie reaches, some subtle hint 
of sun and sand and quivering distances of at- 
mosphere were in the letter, and made its words 
like familiar tones to the girl to whom they 
came. At any rate, this is the letter that found 
its way into Uncle Sam’s mailbag that very 
evening : 


S , Mass., Sept. 10, 190 — . 

Dear Dorothy: Never mind how I know your 
name. I do know it, and I know more things than 
that about you. I know, too, your “ Great West,” for 
am I not a child of the prairies and the mountains, 
cradled in a hollow tree-trunk and educated through 
my early years with the birds and the rabbits? What 
does it matter that later days took me among homes 
that are nearer together, and with people who have 
missed the blessing of comradeship that comes to fel- 
low-sufferers with and for each other! Only the one 
great sorrow of my life could have taken me from the 
land of my childhood dreams and hopes. A great 
joy, God willing, shall bear me back to it ere long. 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 91 


Dorothy, have you room in your heart for a new 
friend? May I come in as if I had known you face to 
face? I want to hear about the life you have lived 
and that which you hope to live, about next win- 
ter’s school and how the chance came to you; about 
the dear ones who will be left behind in the home and 
how they will fare. I am not asking “ officially,” 
dear, but am begging for a heart-to-heart letter. And 
I come with confidence, for do I not know what I 
would have done and said had such a request come 
to me as the daughter in the home of a missionary 
who laid down his life in the home field, and whom 
the Indians loved as they love few men? Do I not 
know how gladly I would have told the story asked 
of me, in full assurance that I was telling it to a real 
friend? 

So write me, Dorothy, and make the mountains 
seem real to me again, and the missionary life, as 
well. Because, you see, I’m coming back — but not 
alone. And we want to realize, before we come, all 
that we can of what it will mean to tell the story of 
Christ on the far frontier. 

And write me soon, dear, for I am in a hurry to 
hear all about it. Here is a handclasp across the 
prairies, the rivers and the mountains that lie be- 
tween us— so little can they separate those who 
really love one another. In this trust, I am, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Margaret Temple. 


II 

A motley collection of boxes and bundles 
was piled in one corner of the church parlor, and 


92 THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 


the president of the Queen Esther Circle looked 
at them a little ruefully. 

“We have enough in quantity at any rate,” she 
said slowly. “ I see that Williams has the barrel 
ready, but I suppose we’d better get through with 
our business meeting before we pack it. Miss 
Temple, I believe you have charge of the devo- 
tional exercises to-day.” 

As Margaret Temple rose, Bible in hand, what 
was it that brought back to the minds of the girls 
the closing words of that letter, “ Pray about it ” ? 
True, they had come up in thought once and 
again in the interval between the two meetings. 
But there had been much to crowd them back, 
and they had made little impression. 

Margaret had chosen the first twelve verses 
from the seventh chapter of Matthew as the 
lesson of the hour, and when she read, in clear, 
resonant tones, “Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them,” uneasy 
glances were cast by more than one pair of eyes 
toward certain packages in the corner pile. Nor 
was the impression lessened when, in simple, 
earnest words, exactly as if she were talking to a 
friend. Miss Temple asked the blessing of Him 
who knoweth the heart on the individual mem- 
bers of the Circle, and on their work and gifts 
for others in the name of the Master. 

“Em glad I didn’t take off those roses, after 


THE “ RUMMAGE ” BARREL 93 


all,” said Grace Foster to herself. “It seemed 
so kind of mean that I just couldn’t.” 

The secretary’s report and a few items of mis- 
cellaneous business were followed by the stereo- 
typed question, “ Is there any new business ? ” 

The pause was broken by Miss Temple. 
“Madam President,” she said, “I have a con- 
fession to make. I hope the members of the 
Circle will not be annoyed because after our last 
meeting I took the liberty of writing a letter 
which, in a way, concerned Circle business. I 
had a real desire to know personally the girl to 
whom our box was going, and so, without men- 
tioning the Circle, I wrote to her. Here is her 
reply, and I think you will all be interested in 
it. Madam President, if the girls would like to 
hear it, may I be allowed to read it myself in- 
stead of passing it to the secretary? It is the 
answer to a personal letter, and contains some 
things that should, perhaps, be omitted in read- 
ing.” 

There was no doubt about the wish of the 
Circle members to hear the letter. They were 
ready to welcome anything that Miss Temple 
might present, as a pleasant variation from what 
had begun to be the monotony of their meetings. 
And then, a letter from the girl herself! Some- 
how she had not been “real folks” in their 
thoughts before. Of course, the letter was but 


94 THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 


the crude effort of a schoolgirl, but then — and 
they settled back in comfortable attitudes, pre- 
pared to listen. 

“ Dear friend,” began the reader. (The letter 
really opened with “Dear Margaret,” but Miss 
Temple changed the wording and omitted the 
sentences immediately following — “ May I call 
you that? It is so good to know that way off in 
the East there is a friend who cares for us, and 
for me; one who really wants to know about my 
very own plans and purposes.”) 

“ You ask me to tell of my home, and I smiled 
when I read the words, wondering what you would 
have said if I had written the description six months 
ago — or two years ago — or four years ago. For at 
every one of those times we were living in a tent. 
Not for fun — oh, no, indeed !— but because there 
wasn’t any house for the minister and his family. 
Indeed, my good father has quite a reputation for 
building parsonages, and this is the fourth time he 
has been sent to a homeless charge. ‘ Can you live in 
a tent again?’ asked the presiding elder, and father 
turned to mother — and she replied, of course, like the 
blessed little mother she is, * Oh, yes, if it’s necessary.’ 

“ But a house has grown in the past six months — 
in this one of four preaching-places, each ten miles 
from anywhere, that make up the ‘circuit.’ Shall I 
tell you how it was built? Lumber and bricks could 
be had only at the county-seat, and that is twenty 
miles away, over a road that is very hilly and, in 
some parts, dangerous. Father was teamster, mason, 
and carpenter, and mother and I helped by holding 


THE “ RUMMAGE ” BARREL 95 


the lamp o’ nights while he tacked on the cheesecloth 
that covers the walls on the inside. ‘No paper?’ 
Indeed, no! We count ourselves very lucky to have 
the cloth inside of the bare boards. But you would 
not ask that question, for your letter shows you have 
not forgotten how things are in the real ‘out West.’ 

“ As for ‘ We, Us and Company,’ * we are seven ’ — 
father, mother, and five children. But oh, there comes 
a heart-break as I write this, for three months ago 
Dolores, my twin sister, was here, too. She was 
father’s ‘ right-hand man,’ helping him in Sunday- 
school and League, while I have always been the 
home-girl. But to-day Dolores has gone to the home 
where they are never cold nor sick, and I am left to 
try — and to fail so often — to fill her place as well as 
my own. 

“Next to me comes Frank — she’s our only boy ex- 
cept the baby, and she’s a girl. But father has called 
her his boy from the time when, a wee bit of a thing, 
she insisted on going to meet him whenever he came 
home, no matter how late or cold it was, and staying 
with him till he had unharnessed and cared for his 
horse. Frances is her real name, but we always call 
her Frank. She is twelve years old, and large and 
strong for her age. Jennie is ten, a real little care- 
taker, who already saves lots of steps for the rest of 
us; then comes Florence — Flossie, in the family dia- 
lect, and the name fits her well, for her hair is like 
spun silk — and Ralph, the year-old baby, who already 
asserts his rights lustily when he thinks them in- 
vaded. 

“ As for my father and mother — Margaret ” — the 
name slipped out unawares, but the girls noticed it — 
“how can I describe them? They are both gradu- 
ates of Eastern colleges, capable, I know, of filling 


96 THE “ RUMMAGE ” BARREL 


important positions. But they are here ‘for Christ 
and the church ’ — here where the needs are so great 
— here in this splendid new land that must be won 
for Christ; here where the winter storms are not 
more cruel than the wicked men, nor the mountains 
one-half so grand as the Christian lives that are de- 
veloped right here. But I need not tell this to you. 
You remember ” 

“ Excuse me,” said Margaret, turning the sheet 
and beginning again, while the girls looked at each 
other significantly. 

“ You ask about my going to school. It is a beauti- 
ful plan, and yet there is a hard side to it, for how 
can I leave the home folks through the cold winter 
that is coming? But father and mother feel that I 
must be fitted for my lifework — for of course I’m 
going to be a missionary. You know that I couldn’t 
be anything else. And now the chance to go on with 
my studies has come, and perhaps the way will open 
some time for me to go to a missionary training-school. 
I am to work for my board this winter in the family 
of the minister in Lookout, a city two hundred miles 
away, where there is a good school. Father planned 
it all when he was there at Conference last year. 

“ My absurd little mother is worrying about my 
clothes — as if they mattered if one can only go to 
school! But I’ve one dress that came in a barrel — 
those blessed missionary barrels — three years ago, 
and flour sacks — now don’t laugh — make good shirt- 
waists, if they aren’t very warm. I’ll work my brains 
so hard that there’ll be no chance to get cold. 

“ I wish you could know the minister to whose 
home I am going, and his dear little wife. They are 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 97 


quite comfortably situated now, but father spent a 
night with them a few years ago, when they were 
living in three little rooms, one back of the other, 
that used to be a shop. Father slept in the middle 
one, and he says it was almost dark, and the broken 
window-panes were stuffed with rags to keep out the 
cold, and the mattress was made of husks — so are 
ours. Have you ever seen such? The minister had 
received only $100 the past twelve months. When 
father came away, he said, ‘ Tell your wife we did 
the best we could for you,’ and father answered, ‘ I’ll 
tell her you did the best you could for me — and for 
God.’ 

“ But to go back to barrels. I wish one could come 
for the people at home, for they need it. Poor father 
runs big risks in his long drives without heavy under- 
clothing and overcoat, and there isn’t a blanket in the 
house. We keep the baby warm by wrapping him in 
an old bearskin — a trophy of father’s hunting, years 
and years ago. He lies in just such a cradle as you 
describe, too — a hollowed-out log — and there isn’t a 
happier boy in the land. 

“When you come ” 

Here Margaret stopped with a confused, “ I 
think that is all, Madam President.” 

Really it seemed “all,” for no one spoke. At 
last the president turned toward the corner with 
the question, “ Shall we begin packing now ? ” 

“ Oh, no, no, no ! ” cried Rose Sinclair, spring- 
ing forward as if in defense of the most care- 
lessly tied box of the whole lot. “No, indeed! 
IPs horrid, and Fm as ashamed as I can be. 1 
wouldn't let you see it for anything! Why,” and 


98 THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 


Rose’s voice broke a bit, “ did you think that she 

was a real girl? I didn’t, not once. But ■” 

“Yes, ‘but,’” echoed May Fremont, and 
there were tears in her eyes as in the eyes of most 
of the others. “We all have a ‘but,’ Rose. 
Madam President, if there’s a single girl except 
Miss Temple who’s willing to send what she has 
here to a girl who can write such a letter as that 
and live such a life, I move that she speak now 
or ‘ever hereafter hold her peace.’ Not one! I 
thought so. Miss Temple, here’s two dollars 
with which I meant to buy some gloves that I 
don’t need one bit. Will you take it and wire 
Dorothy this very afternoon — because I can’t 
wait for a letter to reach her — to write you at 
once all about the sizes, and colors, and every- 
thing, of the whole family? If there isn’t any 
telegraph office I suppose you’ll have to write. 
But I miss my guess, girls, if we can’t send a 
box that is a box — or a barrel, if that’s best — to 
these people. What do you say ? ” 

May’s enthusiasm was always contagious, but 
the others had been no less interested than her- 
self, this time. Miss Temple’s face showed her 
delight in a look that changed to one of deep, in- 
tense joy when Grace Foster said : 

“Excuse me, Miss Temple, but the letter said, 
‘You remember,’ several times. Were you ever 
in the West — the real West, I mean?” 


THE “RUMMAGE” BARREL 99 


“I am the daughter of a frontier minister,” 
was the reply, “and perhaps I ought to explain 
some things in the letter more fully by saying 
that next year I expect to go back as the wife of 
another.” 

Then how they talked — and laughed, and cried 
— as only girls can! And in the midst of the 
happy tumult Miss Temple said softly: “The 
secret is in the letter that started all this, girls, 
— ‘Pray about it/” 

• • • • • 

That barrel? Well, it started as a “rum- 
mage” barrel, fast enough. But when finally 
packed, only the most aristocratic “rummaging” 
could claim kinship with its contents. And, 
even then, there must needs be measure full and 
running over of real heart-love added to the ma- 
terial supplies. And when, the following autumn, 
a company of Queen Esther girls, now thoroughly 
alive to the fact that home missions are for “ real 
folks,” had stood as bridesmaids when twain were 
made one and their “very own missionary” 
smiled good-by through happy tears, they wrote 
the whole story to Dorothy, adding : “ Tell us 

everything you will need, for there’ll be a gradua- 
tion box coming. And by the time you are ready 
to go to the training-school we shall have the 
money ready.” 

Lore.' 


100 A BUNDLE OE FAGOTS 


A BUNDLE OF FAGOTS 

It was the first auxiliary meeting since the sum- 
mer vacation, and the attendance of members and 
friends was large, for the mystery of a “ fagot 
party” had proved enticing. Soft candles gave 
the light needed to supplement the glow of the 
cannel coal in the open grate, that sent long 
streamers of color up into the dim spaces above 
and invited to all sorts of beautiful dreams. 

On a low stool before the fire sat the president 
of the auxiliary, a tall, queenly woman whose face, 
as she spoke, told its story of love for the work 
for the very work’s sake. 

“ These pine cones,” she said, holding them a 
moment before tossing them on the glowing coals, 
“ came from the summit of the mountains crossed 
by the Southern Bailway. I was on my way to 
visit one of our missionary Homes, and I had been 
fascinated by the railroad descriptions of the 
* sapphire country/ the ‘land of the sky/ So I 
planned the trip in a way to make it possible to 
stop over a train at the very top. I meant to 
study scenery, and, indeed, it was magnificent all 
along the way. But I almost forgot the scenery 


A BUNDLE OF FAGOTS 101 


when I saw the homes. Log cabins, the chinks 
filled in with mud, without windows and with but 
one door — I think I saw hundreds of them on that 
journey. And always around their doors were 
clustered the children — so many of them — and so 
many without any better chance in life than their 
fathers and mothers had had. I haven’t brought 
all of my cones. I left a cluster of them, with 
some moss-covered twigs, hanging over my desk. 
And whenever I see them, I say to myself, remem- 
bering that journey and then remembering the 
blessed work that I saw in the Home, ‘ Lord, if I 
may, I’ll serve another day.’” 

“ When I was a child,” said the secretary, tak- 
ing her turn in front of the fire, “ I used to play, 
‘ What is my thought like ! ’ The game was to 
guess what one member of the party was thinking 
about, and then to trace a resemblance between the 
two things, which were often as unlike as black 
and white. I’m afraid you’ll have to do that to- 
night, for my fagot doesn’t seem to bear much 
relation to Home Missions. Here is a bit of a 
stick — I can’t imagine how it chanced to be left 
there — that I picked up on the grounds of the 
Lincoln monument. And this crooked old branch 
came from Mt. McGregor, in sight of the cottage 
where General Grant died. On our way down the 
mountain I strayed into the woods by the side of 
the road and picked up this moss and these cones. 


102 A BUNDLE OF FAGOTS 


If they could only bring c the breath of the woods * 
with them ! ” 

“Why, that’s easy,” cried little Mrs. Duncan, 
the wide-awake treasurer of the auxiliary, as the 
sparks flew from the cones and dry twigs. “We 
always think of the colored people when we think 
of Lincoln. Our society wouldn’t even have 
started, perhaps, if it hadn’t been for Lincoln and 
Grant. As for my fagot — well, of course there 
had to be some money mixed up with it. It’s 
a pretty big one, you see, and it came from the 
girls of our Mission Band. I told them one day 
what we were going to do, and promised some 
money for their treasury if they’d bring me a 
handsome fagot. And isn’t this a fine one ? J ust 
look at the moss — and this beautiful bird’s nest, 
and these queer knots and lichens. It’s too pretty 
to burn, Madame President,” — and here they 
began to laugh, for they knew their treasurer — 
“so if no one objects I’ll put a dollar into the 
treasury and keep my lovely fagot.” 

Amid general laughter, May Freeman came for- 
ward. “ I think mine is rather the most delight- 
ful fagot of all,” she said with a smile. “It’s 
small, to be sure, and, indeed, I left the larger part 
of it at home.” Cries of “ Oh,” “ Oh,” and 
“ That’s not fair,” interrupted the speaker, but she 
went on: “You’d have done the same thing your- 
selves. You know I’ve corresponded with Miss 


A BUNDLE OF FAGOTS 103 


Blank, who went from onr Home in Georgia as 
a missionary to Africa, ever since she left this 
country. When we planned for this party, I 
wrote her to send me a box of sticks — just little 
things that could come through by mail, but that 
would be different from the woods we have here. 
I thought I was going to be disappointed, for the 
box did not reach me till last night, but here they 
are — bits of real wood, leaves and nuts from Africa 
over the sea, sent by one from our own Africa, and 
showing over again that Home and Foreign Mis- 
sion work are but two halves of one great whole, 
and that each needs the other.” 

Widely varied had been the experiences of the 
auxiliary members during that summer vacation. 
There were fagots from the Rockies and even from 
Alaska. Others, that made as bright a flame, 
came from the dear home woods, and told of long, 
happy days of rest and the gathering of strength 
for increased service. But best of all was the last, 
a crooked stick held by the "little deaconess,” as 
she told its story: 

"Those of us who were at home through the 
summer found abundant work in caring for the 
‘ Fresh Air* children. Some we sent away, and 
for others we made picnics near home. Among 
these last, was one little fellow who became my 
most devoted knight. I am sure he was some- 
thing of a * tough 9 before I knew him, but there 


104 A BUNDLE OF FAGOTS 


was that in his eyes that made me like him. 
There’s good stuff in the boy and I mean he shall 
have the chance to prove it. 

“ Whenever we went picnicking Boy was by 
my side, ready to do anything or say anything 
for me — even, as he assured me one day, to 4 lick 
anybody I wanted him to.’ One day, when we 
were in the woods, I remembered our fagot party, 
and picked up some sticks, telling him what they 
were for. 

“ Yesterday I had a nice visit with Boy, and 
as I turned away he handed me this stick. ‘ Won’t 
you take it, Miss Weeden, fer that thar party? ’ he 
asked. Then he hesitated, and really blushed as 
he added, * I used ter keep it ter go fer the boys 
with, but I ain’t goin’ ter do that no more, ’cause 
yer says ’taint right.’ 

“My fagot is Boy’s. And it stands for the 
first strivings of the spirit that shall, please God, 
make of the little lad a good and useful man.” 

The firelight died softly away, and a silence 
fell with the shadows. It was broken by the low 
voice of the pastor: “Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these — ye have done it 
unto me.” 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 105 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 

“ I must needs go to Rome also.” 

"You will have a warm welcome at Eden. 
Brother and Sister Brown believe in the Woman’s 
Home Missionary Society with all their hearts, and 
have been working up sentiment for an auxiliary 
ever since they went there last spring. Freeville 
— I’m a little in doubt about that church; the 
pastor is a good man, but his wife never does any 
church work, and I don’t believe he knows much 
about our society. Still, I .think you’ll get him 
interested if he’ll open the way for you to go there. 

"Here is Mendon,” and the secretary pointed 
to a place in the extreme northwest corner of the 
map. " We ought to have a good strong auxiliary 
at Mendon. It’s one of our largest churches, pays 
a liberal salary, has a fine parsonage, and all that, 
but the people don’t seem interested in anything 
beyond themselves.” 

" Just the people who need the waking up that 
comes from missionary knowledge.” 

" Exactly ! But you can’t always make people 
take the treatment they need. But I’m anxious 
you should go to Mendon. Try to get in there, 


106 THE BURDEN OF MENDON 


even if yon don’t succeed.” The tracing finger 
moved downward along the map. “ You’ll have 
no trouble at all in the southern district. The 
presiding elder is a good friend of our work, and 
his approval will open the way in most of the 
churches, to say the least.” 

“ Evidently I need not feel that in every place 
‘bonds and afflictions abide me,’” said the 
organizer, smiling. 

“Yes, Paul was a real organizer, wasn’t he?” 
replied her friend to the unspoken thought. “ No, 
it’s not so bad as that. You’ll have trials and 
difficulties enough, but Paul has a better motto 
for you — ‘ I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me.’ You’ll need to remember that 
when you try for Mendon — and I want you to get 
in there if you don’t do another thing on that 
district. Mendon has been on my heart for a long 
time, and I believe you’ll succeed there.” 

Full of faith and hope and courage — the typical 
equipment for a Home Missionary organizer — 
Miss Benton began to plan her first route. Years 
of experience as a pastor’s assistant had taught her 
the secret of leading individuals without antago- 
nizing them. It remained to be seen if the same 
“tactics” could be applied in the broader work 
with masses. Were not these made up of indi- 
viduals? Letters were written and received, an 
itinerary made out, and new members, new inter- 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 107 


est, and new auxiliaries attested to the success of 
the earnest young worker. Beginning near home, 
she gradually worked toward the northwest, with 
Mendon constantly in her thoughts. In an unac- 
countable way the burden of that place rested upon 
her. "It seems to me my whole work will be a 
failure if I do not succeed in Mendon,” she said 
to herself. “ It must be that the Lord means me 
to go there, or He wouldn't have laid it so upon 
my heart. I know what Paul meant — ‘I must 
needs go to ’ Mendon.” 

It was pioneer work in the northwestern district. 
But God opened the way among perfect strangers, 
and one engagement led to another. 

“ Excuse me, but isn't this Miss Benton ? ” The 
landscape outside the window lost its interest at 
once as the speaker continued : “ I heard you at 

the annual meeting. My name is Lamb. I'm the 
pastor at Linville. Can't you come to us next 
week and organize a Home Missionary society?” 

There was time for but hurried planning before 
the train stopped at the place of Miss Benton's 
next appointment, but the pastor went home to 
arrange for meetings at Linville. 

“ One more step toward Mendon,” said the or- 
ganizer. 

" Rev. Db. Strong, Mendon. 

“ Dear Brother : As an organizer of the Woman’s 
Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 


108 THE BURDEN OF MENDON 


Church, and with the cordial approval of the presid- 
ing elder of this district, I write to ask if it will be 
possible for you to open the way for our work in your 
church. I shall be in this part of the district for some 
weeks to come ; at the close of that time I should be 
glad to go to Mendon. Kindly reply at your earliest 
convenience, that 1 may be able to plan accordingly. 

“Yours sincerely, 

“ Florence M. Benton.” 

This was the letter mailed from Linville — the 
final step, as Miss Benton fondly hoped, toward 
Mendon. But day after day brought no answer, 
till at last she told her good friends in Linville of 
the burden on her heart. 

“ Fll telephone Brother Strong,” said her host. 
Suiting action to word, he at once called up his 
fellow-worker at Mendon. “ Say, why didn’t you 
answer Miss Benton’s letter? . . . Did you 

get it? . . . What? What has that to do 
with it? . . . Oh, I see! . . . Well, look 
here — when can you do it? . . . Not before 

then? . . . That’s too bad. Well, I’ll tell 
her.” 

The good brother turned from the instrument 
with a laugh that was half an apology. “ What do 
you think Brother Strong says ? ‘ Once in a while 
I like a chance to preach in my own pulpit/ It’s 
too bad — but Bible Society and Parent Missionary 
and Education Society, and some other church 
agents have been there, till he says he must call a 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 109 


halt. But he’ll write you — he can’t open the way 
before December, to say the least.” 

“ Before December” — and it was the first of 
November! With the exception of Mendon, all 
the organizing work practicable in that district 
had been done. But to leave that part of the 
State at that time was to leave Mendon unvisited 
for the year. The way was hedged up, as it so 
often is, and the outlook was upward only. But 
Miss Benton was no stranger at the throne, and 
although “ Wait ” was the only answer to her call 
for guidance, it was enough. 

Back in the home of the Conference secretary 
there was uneasiness. “ I wonder if it is really 
best for you to stay there a whole month waiting 
for a chance at Mendon. I want you to go there 
— but I don’t want you to ‘wear out your wel- 
come,’ as my New England grandmother used to 
say.” 

And Miss Benton promptly replied : “Not for 
nothing do I come of genuine New England stock. 
A Yankee woman can turn her hand to anything, 
and these overworked ministers’ wives in the coun- 
try places are only too glad to have some help on 
the winter’s sewing. I am not wasting my time — 
for I believe it is God’s order for me to wait. Nor 
need you worry about my ‘welcome.’ Just trust 
me. It will all come out right. I shall have a 
good auxiliary to report from Mendon.” 


110 THE BURDEN OF MENDON 


The days went by, but still no word from the 
pastor at Mendon. On the Monday following the 
first Sabbath of December Miss Benton herself 
went to the telephone. 

“ Is this Dr. Strong ? This is Miss Benton. 
Will it be convenient for you to have me come to 
your church next Sunday ? " 

“ I have had so much in my church — ■” Right 
in the middle of the sentence “ Central " cut him 
off, as “ Central” has a way of doing. Another 
trial : 

“ What did you say, doctor ? ‘ Central 9 cut us 
off" 

“ Fve had so many — ■" Again the cut-off. “ I 
must needs go to Mendon," said Miss Benton to 
herself, as she tried the third time to get the mes- 
sage, with the same result. The fourth time the 
response came promptly, “ Come next Sunday ! " 

"I feel like singing the doxology right in the 
telephone," cried Miss Benton, as she turned away. 
“Dr. Strong tells me to come Saturday noon, so 
we can plan. Fm really going to Mendon ! " 

Even an organizer, who goes in all sorts of 
weather, to all sorts of homes, where she must be 
agreeable to all sorts of people, sometimes wonders 
what her welcome will be from the strangers at her 
next abiding place. But all anxiety about this 
part of the visit to Mendon was dispelled by the 
cheery greeting at the parsonage. 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 111 


“ Glad to see you, Sister Benton, if the telephone 
did treat us so badly. Here is my wife, who knows 
you better than you know her, I fancy.” 

“ Oh, we are not strangers,” said the cheery little 
Mrs. Strong, taking the wraps of her guest as she 
spoke. “ Don’t you remember Minnie Foster, who 
used to be in your infant class in Sunday-school? 
I’m ever so glad to see you.” 

With such greeting, Miss Benton may be par- 
doned for puzzled thoughts. Why had they been, 
seemingly, so unwilling for her to come to Men- 
don? What could be the trouble? Something 
outside of the parsonage, surely. 

The mystery was explained as they sat around 
the dinner table: “We hated to have you come, 
Miss Benton, for we dreaded a failure, both for 
your sake and ours. The truth is, it seems im- 
posssible to stir the people here to any interest in 
missions. One of the best speakers of the Woman’s 
Foreign Society was here a while ago. She had 
a lot of curios, and everybody enjoyed her talk, 
but when it came to organization only two women 
would give their names besides my wife. I’m very 
much afraid your attempt will be another fizzle, 
but I couldn’t hold out any longer.” 

“Your story seems like a Jericho wall,” an- 
swered Miss Benton, “but I believe the Lord has 
given me Mendon. One thing is certain, if He 
helps us organize a society here, there’ll be one. 


112 THE BURDEN OF MENDON 


If He doesn’t, neither you nor I can accomplish 
it.” And she told them of the “ burden of Men- 
don.” 

There was earnest prayer in that parsonage 
home that night, and when they rose from their 
knees the good pastor echoed the faith of their 
hearts as he said, “ Shout ! for the Lord hath given 
you the city.” 

“ Surely the Lord was with mo,” said Miss Ben- 
ton, as she told her story, the next week, to the 
Conference secretary. “ I could pick out in that 
congregation the very women whom I knew would 
join the society. At the close of my talk, I said, f I 
would be glad to shake hands with every woman 
in this congregation, and, at the same time, to take 
the name of every woman to whom God has 
spoken/ Forty names were given, and a meeting 
for organization was appointed for the next after- 
noon at the parsonage. 

"Monday opened with a pouring rainstorm, 
such a storm as lasts all day. But it didn’t drown 
our faith. The pastor and his wife had especially 
interested me in two ladies in the congregation — 
fine people, but not professing Christians. Neither 
had given her name on Sunday, and yet I felt 
sure they wanted to join, so I was not surprised 
when they came to the afternoon meeting. One 
of them brought her little daughter, a beautiful 
child of six years. They lingered a moment after 


THE BURDEN OF MENDON 113 


the others left, and one of them said, ‘We have 
been so interested in all yon have told/ 

“ ‘ But you didn’t join us/ I answered. 

“‘No/ said the mother of the little girl, who 
was looking into my face with wide-open eyes. 
‘ No — two cents a week is nothing — but I couldn’t 
do the rest/ 

“‘My dear/ I said, laying my hand on her 
shoulder, ‘you the mother of this beautiful little 
girl, and not a Christian? Will you think this 
over to-night — and you, too, sister ? ’ f or I had each 
by the hand as I spoke, ‘ and will you let me know 
to-morrow if you will take the society and all there 
is in it ? ’ 

“ Neither could speak, but the dear little blue- 
eyed darling came to their help. ‘ Can’t Minnie 
and I be Home Guards?’ she asked, eagerly. 
‘ We’ll send our pennies — Minnie’s my cousin, you 
know — and mamma’ll help us to have our meet- 
ings — only who’ll pray?’ she added, with a little 
troubled look. Once more was the promise ful- 
filled, ‘A little child shall lead them/ ‘Mamma 
will pray, darling/ said the mother, and she broke 
down completely as she threw her arms around the 
little one. ‘And auntie, too/ said the other one. 
And then and there we had a prayer-meeting, and 
all of us prayed. When it came wee Dorothy’s 
turn she said, ‘ Dear J esus, I’m so glad my mamma 
knows how to pray now. Amen/” 


114 CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 


To-day the Woman’s Home Missionary Society 
counts among its best auxiliaries that in Mendon, 
and the Woman’s Foreign is equally welcomed. 
Under the leadership of the two who learned to 
pray when they learned to give, both societies are 
proving themselves even more of a blessing, if 
possible, to the Mendon church than to those for 
whom they labor. And Miss Benton, as she moves 
among the churches, thanks God and takes courage 
whenever she thinks of the burden of Mendon. 


FROM CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 

te I suppose there’s an old freight car side- 
tracked somewhere — or else that precious barrel 
is hid away in some musty, dark station, all cov- 
ered with dirt and spider webs, and everything 
in it spoiled! And we need it so much! I de- 
clare, I most wish they hadn’t written one word 
about it. It’s too hard, Mamsie, I can’t bear it,” 
and the curly brown head sank into her mother’s 
lap, and the tears choked the voice. 

It was hard for Carol, a minister’s daughter 
on the far western frontier, where crops were 
poor and money scarce. She had few things to 
enjoy — few, I mean, compared with those that 


CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 115 


you have, you happy girls whose lives are filled 
with sunshine and treasures. She loved pretty 
things just as well as you do, and was a thousand 
times happier over a new ribbon or a bit of em- 
broidery than you know how to be; and as for 
books, in all her twelve years Carol had had but 
two that she could really call her own, her Bible 
and her hymn book. 

But the two weeks before Christmas had been 
gladdened by a wonderful letter that came from 
an Eastern Sunday school, and this was its mes- 
sage: 

“The North Street Sunday school sends you 
Christmas greetings, which you will find in a 
barrel that we ship by freight to-day to your 
address. Please notify us of its safe arrival.” 

The letter reached the little parsonage late at 
night, when Carol and dear little Ruth, the pet 
of the home, were fast asleep. But the light in 
the mother’s face the next morning was so bright 
that the secret could not be kept; and when she 
knew it, small wonder that Carol could think of 
little else till Christmas Day. 

“ Oh, what do you suppose will be in it ? ” she 
questioned over and over. “Let’s guess, Ruthie. 
I think there’ll be a dress for you and some mit- 
tens for papa — he needs them dreadfully, you 
know — and oh, I do hope there’ll be a book for 
me — just one — because I’ve read all those in the 


116 CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 


house except papa’s sermon books. I tried to 
read those, but they aren’t interesting. What do 
you think will be in it, Ruth ? ” 

And the golden-haired, blue-eyed baby — just 
as fair and sweet as the treasure in your home — 
said shyly, "I don’t know, but something good. 
Perhaps,” and imagination reached its utmost 
height, “ perhaps there’ll be a big, round dollar.” 

“ Oh, no, Ruthie, folks don’t send dollars in 
barrels. It’ll be clothes and such things, of 
course.” 

But the ways of freight trains are past finding 
out. It did seem as if that particular one, that 
was laden with so much of hope and cheer, might 
have gone straight to its destination. But 
Christmas Day came and went, and no barrel 
appeared at the parsonage door. "It will surely 
be here by New Year’s,” said the minister, but 
there were no signs of it on New Year’s morn- 
ing, or the next day, or the next week, or the 
next month. Do you wonder that Carol was 
discouraged, or that she said, one day, 

“ I don’t believe there ever was a barrel ! I 
believe they made the whole story up, on pur- 
pose to cheat us!” 

But back in the North Street Sunday school 
there was real trouble, too, though it could not 
be so keen as Carol’s. They had taken so much 


CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 117 


pains with that barrel! Classes had vied with 
each other in filling it, and Class No. 19, com- 
posed of girls about Carol’s age, had assumed 
special charge of the Christmas for the West- 
ern girl. 

“ She’ll want something that looks warm, way 
out there in the cold,” said Edyth, and a bright, 
red flannel waist, and neat leather belt went 
into the barrel. 

"I don’t suppose she can get ribbons so easily 
as we can ! I wish I knew the color of her hair ; ” 
— this from Dorothy — “I’ll send pink and blue 
both — she can wear one of them, I’m sure.” 

“I shall send her books,” cried Laura. “I, 
too,” said Lucy, “and a box of candy. I don’t 
believe she’ll be any happier when she opens the 
packages than we are in sending them.” 

“ She can have no happier face,” said the 
teacher to herself, as she prayed that the dear 
young hearts might so learn the blessed lesson 
of giving that it would never be forgotten. 

And now it was all for nothing — so it seemed. 
No “ tracers ” discovered the barrel, no railroad 
officials could find it. To all appearance, it was 
hopelessly lost. 

There began to be a touch of spring in the air 
in the far Western country. The snow had dis- 
appeared from the lowlands, and though the 


118 CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 


bare, brown fields were yet wet and dreary, the 
farmers knew that they would soon be ready for 
the plow. 

The Christmas barrel was quite forgotten, for 
there was more serious trouble in the parsonage. 
Dear little Ruth, the sunshine of the home, saw 
the first spring flowers blossom in a sheltered 
nook, and then closed her sweet, blue eyes to 
open them again in the eternal spring, in the 
garden of God. This was the end of the hard, 
cold winter — the darkness and gloom of a great 
sorrow. 

Softly they drew a white cloth over the face 
of their darling, and left the precious body as 
it had never been left before — alone. Then the 
minister drew his wife aside to whisper, 

“ Don’t tell Carol, dear, she has all that she 
can bear, but I haven’t one cent for the burial 
of our baby. I shall start very early in the 
morning to see if I can borrow ten dollars from 
Brother Brewster over • at Reading.” 

Can you picture that walk in the chill of the 
early morning— the walk of an empty-handed, 
broken-hearted father, ten miles and back, that 
he might have the wherewithal to bury his child? 
Worse still, he was haunted all the way by the 
specter of doubt: 

“ I must have the money, but how can I ever 
pay it back? How can I expect to save ten dol- 


CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 119 


lars in the future any more than in the past? 
Oh, has it been a mistake, all a mistake coming 
here? Might I have served my Master just as 
well if I had stayed back East, in the comforts 
of civilization, where my family could have been 
properly cared for? 0 God, was it a mistake?” 

All those long miles the bitter heart cry went 
up. Think you it was unheard? Nay, we have a 
God who hears and answers prayer. 

It was Easter Eve when the minister’s weary 
feet crossed the threshold of his home once more. 
Carol met him at the door with a burst of sobs. 

" Oh, papa, the barrel, the Christmas barrel, 
has come — and Ruthie can’t see it. Oh, let’s not 
open it! I don’t want to see anything that’s 
in it ! ” 

Very tenderly the father’s arms encircled the 
child, as he answered, "Father knows, dear, how 
hard it is. We must be brave and help each 
other. As for the barrel, perhaps — what do 
you think, mother?” he asked, turning to his 
wife. 

"I think you had better open it,” she replied 
slowly. " There may be shoes in it that Carol 
can wear, and she needs them very much!” 

In the very top of the barrel lay an envelope 
addressed to Rev. Mr. Graves. "This is proba- 
bly some explanation,” said the minister, "and 


120 CHRISTMAS TO EASTER 


perhaps Fd better read it before we explore any 
farther.” And this is what he read: 

“ Study of North Street Parsonage, 
“December 6, 19 — . 

“Dear Brother: 

“The remaining contents of this barrel are love 
tokens from the Sunday-school of this church to your- 
self and family. The pastor was not asked to share 
the blessedness of this giving, but he cannot be denied 
the pleasure of so doing. He has not forgotten the 
purpose of his youth to be a frontier preacher, and, 
though failing health kept him from its fulfillment, 
every such shepherd of the wandering sheep is to him 
his substitute. As such, he begs you to accept the 
inclosed with a sincere prayer that the Christ-Child 
may dwell with you — nay, that you may know Him 
not only as the Babe in the Manger, but as the Christ 
of God, that your ministry may be in the power of 
His resurrection. 

“Yours cordially 

“Charles M. Graham.” 

From the folds of the letter dropped a crisp 
ten dollar bill. As the minister picked it up, he 
said reverently : “ That — I may know Him — 

and the power of His resurrection — and the fel- 
lowship — of His sufferings.” 

• • • • • 

On Easter morning they laid the little form 
to rest. But as the minister looked into the 
faces of his flock — men and women and children 


GIFTS FOR CHRIST -CHILD 121 


who knew and loved him, who sympathized with 
him in his sorrow even as he had wept with them 
beside their dead — as he remembered the strug- 
gles which he had shared, the conflicts in which 
he had helped them, by his own unfaltering trust, 
to be “more than conquerors,” he knew there 
had been no mistake in God’s plan for the lives 
of himself and his dear ones. The father’s voice 
was calm and steady as he said: “We lay our 
little one to rest in the sure hope of the resur- 
rection morning.” 



“CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR THE CHRIST- 
CHILD ” 

The words were in bold, clear type, on a strip 
of white cloth extending the whole length of the 
wall back of the platform in the Sunday-school 
room. To the members of the various classes 
they were a puzzling surprise. But the teachers 
needed no explanation. There had been an in- 
vitation to the superintendent’s home, an hour 
spent in pleasant social converse, followed by such 
words from the superintendent and pastor as are 
not easily forgotten. And there had been prayers 
— such prayers as bring heaven very near, simple, 
earnest prayers — asking God to bless the new 


122 GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 


plans that had been made, and asking as if it 
were the most certain thing in the world that 
He would hear and answer. 

“ What does it mean?” said one and another, 
but “ Wait and see,” was the only reply. 

Rows of expectant faces greeted the superin- 
tendent as he stepped forward for the closing 
exercises. But Mr. Wendell had no purpose to 
gratify the curiosity there expressed. He only 
said, quietly: “ You have noticed the new motto 
on our wall to-day. It will remain there until the 
Sunday before Christmas. Then each of us, I 
hope, will have something to say about it.” 

That was all; no, not quite all, for, either 
verbally or by written invitation, each scholar in 
the school was asked to be the guest of his teacher 
at some time during the following week. 

To take even a glimpse at each of the little 
groups thus brought together would be beyond 
our power. The plans for the class meetings were 
as varied as conditions required and circum- 
stances permitted. For Miss Mellin’s girls, on 
the threshold of womanhood, there was, of course, 
an evening at her beautiful home, with cake and 
cream and such breezy chatter as only girls of 
that age can furnish. For Dr. Forbes’ class of 
fun-loving boys, most of them wage-earners in 
the intervals of school duties, there was a long 
Saturday in the woods, a tramp with rods and 


GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 123 


lines, a noonday lunch with fish broiled to order 
and potatoes roasted in the coals. And the good 
doctor, getting the rare vacation day his busy 
life afforded, followed the example of his Master 
and fished for souls. 

It is safe to assume that the talk in each of 
the little gatherings was on similar lines though 
with varying expressions. It was not the first 
time that Miss Henley's class of young ladies had 
met in the tiny parlor back of the millinery store, 
nor was this the first earnest discussion carried on 
there. But there was a difference somehow; the 
thought in their minds seemed so great, so won- 
derful, that they could not talk about it so easily 
as usual. It was Kate Masters, of course, who 
broke the silence. 

“ Don't you think that our love gifts, those we 
make to our friends, are that sort, Miss Henley ? " 
she asked, abruptly. 

“What sort, Kate?" asked Miss Henley in 
return. 

“Why, you know — ‘ for the Christ-child.' It 
sounds horrid to say it out loud, though, because 
— well, I know it isn't exactly true." 

They were used to Kate's “backing down," as 
she herself called it, but Nell Phillips took up 
the word. 

“That's so, Kate, it does sound mean. But I 
don't see what else there is to say. I suppose 


1U GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 


every one of us is just as busy as sbe can be get- 
ting ready for Christmas. I know I am. And I 
haven’t a cent of money to give, for I’ve had to 
stretch the little I had to make it go ’round.” 

" Nor I, nor a minute of time,” added Caro 
Wendell. " Of course there’s my tenth — we f all 
have that. But we couldn’t use that for these 
Christmas gifts, for that’s not ours. They must 
be out and out gifts, and — well, I’m ashamed to 
say it, but I guess we’re all alike — I didn’t plan 
any Christmas gifts for the Christ-child.” There 
was a suspicious little break in Caro’s voice, as 
if tears were very near the surface. 

"I’m afraid,” said May Thomas, "that we’re 
all in debt to the Lord more than we’ve dreamed. 
Don’t you suppose one-tenth of our time belongs 
to Him just as much as one-tenth of our 
money ? ” 

"Why, how could we?” began Lou Churchill, 
and then stopped as May continued: 

"I’m thinking of a talk I heard not long ago 
at a missionary meeting. It didn’t mean very 
much to me then, but it all comes back to me this 
afternoon. We go to church Sunday and to Sun- 
day-school, and we count that one-seventh of our 
time, and think we have given the Lord more 
than the tithe. But ought we to count the 
sermons and the music as Christian work? I’m 
sure part of what we get on Sunday ought to be 


GIFTS FOR CHRIST - CHILD 125 


credited to education and culture and that kind 
of thing. Then Sunday is the Lord’s Day, and 
I’m not sure but we owe Him one-tenth of our 
time besides. I’m going to think it through for 
myself, at any rate, and see if I can’t work out 
this Christmas puzzle at the same time.” 

When the girls separated that night there were 
certain distinct purposes in the mind of each, 
purposes whose working out was destined to affect 
many other lives than their own. 

It was the Sunday before Christmas and near 
the close of the Sunday-school hour. On the 
table before the superintendent lay a pile of 
sealed white envelopes, and the expectant faces 
of scholars and teachers showed both interest 
and curiosity. Class had vied with class, in ac- 
cordance with the wishes of their teachers, not 
only in giving but in secrecy concerning the gifts. 
The room was very still as Mr. Wendell pointed 
to the motto on the wall, now a familiar phrase, 
saying: 

"A month ago this motto began to speak its 
silent message to us. Ho one knows the result, 
and no one knows what is in these envelopes. I 
am sure, however, that the results of this effort 
will not all be known here, whatever the opening 
of the envelopes may reveal. Only in heaven can 
they be counted up. 


126 GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 


“ These envelopes are from classes, or from in- 
dividuals, following out your own wishes as ex- 
pressed to your teachers. There are no names, at 
least on the outside, by which we may know ‘ who 
is who/ or which is who, for this giving has been 
to the Lord and not to men. But I believe we 
shall find messages here that will not only help 
to fill missionary treasuries, but will fill our own 
hearts with a joy and gladness we have never 
known before.” 

As he said this the superintendent opened the 
envelope lying on top of the pile, and taking 
from it a ten-dollar gold piece, read the accom- 
panying note: 

“A class gift for Missions — the gold of self- 
denial, for the sake of Him who ‘ first loved 
us/ ” 

“ A hundred dimes from a hundred little 
people, to help give other boys and girls a 
chance” would have suggested the primary class 
without wee Harold’s cry, “ That’s my class, and 
I picked up chips to get my ten cents.” 

“ An unnecessary ribbon, a pair of gloves 
mended instead of getting new ones, chocolate 
creams unbought, some walks instead of trolley 
rides — all these are tucked into this tiny en- 
velope.” Folded within this note was a crisp 
five-dollar bill. 

"Didn’t you wonder why we hollered so? We 


GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 127 


just had to, to make you hear, and here’s the 
three dollars we made.” They laughed, of course, 
as they remembered that Dr. Forbes’ class had 
been most persistent in crying the daily papers, 
and clamorous for errands to be done — and paid 
for. 

“ A thank offering for last Sunday’s sermon ” ; 
“ a pocket-piece that had better be doing some 
good in the world”; “ten dollars for a scholar- 
ship, with more to follow”; the promise of fifty 
dollars during the year to come, “ to be used ‘ at 
Jerusalem’ or for ‘all nations’”; so the notes 
went on, the pile of bills and coin beginning to 
show over the edge of the basket into which they 
were thrown. 

At last but two envelopes remained on the 
table. From the first of these, when opened, 
there fell several slips of paper, but no money. 
Taking up a sheet that inclosed the others, Mr. 
Wendell read: 

“We are volunteers, and so have to give our 
names. Use us if you can.” The names of Miss 
Henley’s girls were on the slips, following prom- 
ises like these: 

“I will help in the missionary work of the 
Junior Society next year”; “I will do my best 
for a mission study class, if there are those who 
would like to join one”; “We’ve done what we 
said we would not do — we’ve joined the Woman’s 


128 GIFTS FOR CHRIST-CHILD 


Foreign Missionary Society, and have promised 
to take charge of its children’s work next year ” ; 
“ If I may, I will gather up the Mothers’ J ewels, 
and train them for home missionary work.” 
When you. know that each of these places and 
several others for which the girls volunteered had 
been begging for workers for many a day, you 
will not wonder at the glad hearts and shining 
faces of the leaders in these various lines of work 
as the pledges were read. 

A change came over the face of the superin- 
tendent as he glanced at the contents of the next 
envelope. There was no money — only a tiny 
note. After a moment’s pause Mr. Wendell 
read: 

“ I give myself to-day. ‘ I’ll go where you want 
me to go, dear Lord, I’ll say what you want me 
to say.’” 

"I know this writing,” said Mr. Wendell, his 
voice trembling with emotion. “The writer has 
given her most precious possession — and mine,” 
he added, softly, and then they knew that sweet 
Caro Wendell was her father’s Christmas gift to 
the Christ-child. 









OCT 16 1905 












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